Priidahkrein
by skyflower51
Summary: Every hero's story starts somewhere, but I admit, my beginning was hardly impressive. I wonder if Skyrim's people would be disappointed to learn that it was nothing more than a love of magic, a hatred of fishing, and a healthy dose of boredom that set their unlikely saviour's feet on the path of the Dragonborn… oh, and the random, insane cult of kidnapping mages. They helped too.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello there, readers. :) This is the third of a group of short stories I'm writing, each featuring a different one of my Dragonborns, explaining their backgrounds, personalities and motivations. This one will be about four or five chapters.** **The title is dragon language - it means 'spreads the sun.' You'll understand why by the end of the story.**

 **Most of this story will be set in Black Marsh, so I'm making up quite a few things about Argonian culture and lifestyle, but I think it's all lore-friendly. I hope you enjoy!**

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PRIIDAHKREIN

It all started with the Histcarp Run.

Jeerala's mornings began, as a rule, with someone hammering on the wooden door to her room until it shook. Of course, it wasn't her room, but the room she shared with Meer-Lai, but since Meer-Lai was usually the one doing the hammering, she had long ago decided that if he was going to get up at some ungodsly hour, and stay up late working, it was more her room than his. He was barely ever in it.

This morning was no exception to the usual way of things, except that the blows on her door were even more forceful than normal. Jeerala jerked awake, groaned, and slammed her head down again. 'I'll get up tomorrow,' she shouted.

'You'll get up now.' Meer-Lai's voice, as usual. 'We don't have time to waste.'

'Time is infinite.' Jeerala parted her jaws in a gaping yawn. 'You should read more.'

A pause, something that sounded like a sigh, and then her brother's voice again. 'There's not infinite time for the Histcarp Run.'

Jeerala groaned and clasped a hand over her eyes. The Histcarp Run – of course. The most irritating few days of the entire year. The days when Meer-Lai could show again and again just how much better at being an Argonian he was than her. The days when everyone got to see just how clumsy and unlike the rest of them she was. The days when her father shot more disapproving looks at her than any others.

The days she wanted more than ever just to get away from the whole thing. The 'thing' being her family.

But she knew that if she didn't get up, Meer-Lai would tell her father, and then he'd take her books away until he thought she'd 'learned to overcome her laziness.' And so she mumbled something that sounded vaguely like an agreement with her brother's words, and hauled herself upright.

She dressed slowly and stumblingly, wondering twice why her tunic wasn't fitting before realising she'd been trying to put her head through the sleeves, and then later noticing she'd got it back to front. Then she managed to put both feet through the same leg of her breeches – she utterly refused to wear dresses, they were completely impractical in this environment - sending her crashing onto the floor. Finally, she spent an entire minute trying to put her left boot onto her right foot. And at last, she made her way down the wooden stairs, which creaked as usual, to find the cramped kitchen of their house occupied only by her mother, who was standing at the table, carefully wrapping up food in bundles of cloth.

'Morning, love.' Her mother glanced up from her work only briefly. 'Yours is the one in the light blue cloth. You might want to take a bag to carry it, especially if you're thinking of taking some books with you.'

Jeerala blinked. 'Aren't we having breakfast?'

'We can eat as we work.'

The voice was accompanied by the slam of the door being thrust open. Jeerala moved back to make way as her father crossed the room to the table and dropped a cloth backpack onto the wooden surface. 'There's no time to waste. The Run's started and we can't let them get ahead of us.'

'Don't overwork yourself, Rajava.' Swims-In-Streams pushed the food bundles across the tables. 'That's yours, and that one's for Meer-Lai. Don't forget to take cloaks with you; it looks like rain.'

Rajava huffed. 'Rain's not going to stop us. It's going to be a good year, I can tell. Fall and his lot are already up there, setting up the nets.' He turned to Jeerala, his yellow eyes narrowed. 'Are you going to grace us with your presence?'

Jeerala would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't known it would lead to a scolding. 'I only just woke up.'

'You should have been up at dawn like the rest of us. Anyway, I sent Meer-Lai to fetch you almost ten minutes ago.'

'Rajava,' Swims-In-Streams said quietly, drawing the pressure away from Jeerala for a moment. 'Has there been any word from your brother?'

Jeerala looked at her father eagerly; her gratitude to her mother for changing the subject was quickly overwhelmed by a desire to hear her father say yes.

To her disappointment, Rajava shook his head. 'Still nothing. In his last letter he said he thought he'd make it back for the Run, but he's been away from Black Marsh so long I'm surprised he even remembers what time of year the Run is.' He stuffed the food parcels into his bag. 'If he turns up, send him to the streams. That's if he's not forgotten the way.'

'Uncle Ushara's not an idiot, Pa.'

Jeerala's father let out a small snort. 'Maybe, but he's still gone too far away from the Hist trees.' He fastened the straps on his bag. 'Go and get yourself a pack, Jee, we've got a long day's work ahead of us and you'll need supplies. And be quick about it – Follows-The-Fall and his family are waiting.'

With a sigh, Jeerala turned her back on her parents and plodded back up to her room. As she stuffed the essentials for the day into a knapsack – a cloak, a spare tunic for when the one she was wearing inevitably became soaked – she could hear her parents' voices drifting up from below.

'Will you be all right here with Shujeema?'

'Of course. We've got some new cloths almost made; we'll bring them up for you, and you can take them down to Fernglade with the fish.'

A pause, and then her father's voice. 'Argonians shouldn't stray too far from the Hist.'

'Your brother can take care of himself.'

Another pause.

'It's not him I'm worried about. He's made his choice. I worry more about those who have yet to make their choices.'

Jeerala hesitated, her mind torn between trying to work out what her father meant and whether she should take _Travels Through Tamriel Volume Eight – Elsweyr_ by Marcella Desidenius or _Amongst the Draugr_ by Bernadette Bantien with her to the streams. Eventually she decided that books were more important than her parents' nattering, and that since she'd only read the former ten times, in compared to having read the latter about fourteen, she'd take _Travels_ with her, and read it in any spare moments she had.

Not that there would be many. Her father, she knew, would work her hard as he could get away with.

That was all she needed to take, she decided, and hurried back downstairs. Her father must have left while she'd been mulling things over. Her mother plucked her bag from her hands and placed a food parcel in it. 'Here. Your father's heading up to the streams. You'll catch up with him if you run.'

'Thanks, Ma.' Jeerala tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice – something that usually wasn't hard for her, but on this occasion, her attempt failed miserably.

Her mother's eyes softened. 'Your father doesn't mean to hurt you, Jee. I know he can be a bit…' She gestured.

'Brusque?' Jeerala suggested.

'Yes, brusque. But he loves you.'

'And I shouldn't need to be told that.'

Swims-In-Steams winced visibly.

'You'd better get up to the streams, Jeerala. Unless you want to stay here with me and Shujeema making the cloth – '

Jeerala snatched her pack from her mother's hands. 'No thanks. I'm okay. Have a good day, Ma. Bye,' she blurted out, and raced out of the door.

Outside the house, she ran a few paces before skidding to a halt. Despite her mother's words, she had no intention of running to catch up with her father. She'd follow at her own pace – not least because she wanted to spend as small an amount of time helping with the Histcarp Run as possible. It wasn't that she wanted to make things difficult for her family. She just knew that if she spent too long up there, she'd be smacking her head against trees before long.

She stood for a moment in the clearing that formed the only home she'd ever known, hefting her pack onto her shoulders. The village of Hejal was hardly worthy to be called a village – it consisted of only three houses, all of which were made in the traditional Argonian mud-hut style. The walls were solidified earth, and they looked, to Jeerala, more like animal droppings than houses. At least, they looked nothing like the houses she'd seen in the pictures in her books. Nordic longhouses of thick stone, strong and made to withstand the northland winds. Cyrodiilic towers built to show off the power of the Empire. Entire cities of Bosmer and Khajiit strung among the trees of vast forests, balancing on the branches. So much more than three huts in a clearing in an impenetrable marsh.

The first was her family's home, the one she shared with her parents and Meer-Lai. The second was that of Follows-The-Fall – a longtime friend of her father's, who had been born in Black Marsh but raised in Cyrodiil, and who, for some reason, had decided to _return_ to his homeland. Just one of the many reasons why Jeerala found him hard to understand. Follows-The-Fall's hut was occupied by himself, his wife Lateesh, and their younger two children. The eldest, Catches-Silver, was the owner of the third house.

Lateesh's one and only goal in life, Jeerala sometimes felt, was to marry off her children, and she'd got part of her wish some years ago when Catches-Silver returned from the nearest large settlement – well, to Jeerala, 'large' consisted of more than ten houses, and the village of Fernglade just about met that criteria – with a pretty, pale beige-scaled girl at his side, announcing that this was Shujeema, and she was going to eat with them that evening, and months later they'd announced their engagement. And so fishing had been set aside for a week, while the family worked together to make a new hut in the glade. Jeerala wasn't sure which task she hated more – getting her hands rubbed raw by fishing nets even despite her scales, or having them covered in mud from making and repairing huts.

Jeerala let out a sigh and started trekking into the tangle of trees and ferns and unnameable plants that lay between Hejal and the fishing streams. There was a path, and the undergrowth was recently flattened by her father's passing through, but Jeerala still felt like every frond and vine was intentionally trying to trip her.

The novelty of having a new face amongst them had soon worn off; Shujeema was sweet but shy, and an Argonian of few words, and she always seemed eager to get away from her conversations with Jeerala. And so life went on as normal. Catches-Silver's wedding had left two more children for Lateesh to marry off. And if Meer-Lai and Ireethra went on the way they were, Jeerala had a nasty feeling that it wouldn't be much longer before her wish was granted.

She wouldn't have had any trouble with her brother liking Ireethra if it weren't for two things. One: she knew Ireethra hated her. And two, she knew that it made Lateesh even more convinced that Jeerala was destined to marry the youngest of her children, Stands-On-Pebbles. The thought made Jeerala let out a huff. _I'm seventeen, for the Hist's sake…_

'Hey, Jee! Wait up!'

Jeerala stopped and glanced back along the path. _Speak of the Dremora._

Not that Pebbles was anything like a Dremora. As she watched him struggling through the plants, Jeerala had to admit that he was by far the best person in Hejal, just as out of place here as she was. But Pebbles never complained about it. Pebbles never complained about _anything._

'Did you oversleep too?' he panted as he reached her.

'No. I slept to an ordinary, sane time.'

Pebbles laughed. 'I guess today will be more of the usual. Parents telling us to hurry, fish scales and water getting everywhere, and me proving just how much of a disaster I am with a fishing net.'

Jeerala snorted. 'More than me, you mean?'

'You're no way near as bad as I am.' Pebbles sighed with frustration as he tripped again. 'Your father is just a bit more vocal in his disapproval than mine, so it seems worse.'

'Let me take some of that.' Pebbles was hauling what looked like three nets and a number of spears, and Jeerala ran forward to help him carry them.

'Thanks.' Pebbles handed her a few of the spears, struggling for a moment to untangle them from the strands of woven grass that formed the nets. 'It's hard enough getting through this undergrowth without – darn these nets – tripping over this stuff.'

Jeerala grinned. 'Come on, let's shift ourselves, or our dads will advocate us being the ones being put in these nets.'

Pebbles blinked at her.

'What?' Jeerala tipped her head on one side, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

The other Argonian shrugged, smiling. 'You're the only person I've ever met who uses words like _advocate.'_

Jeerala let out a snort and turned her back on him, using the fishing spears to part the undergrowth before them. 'No offense, Pebbles, but how many people have you met?'

'Well, not many. I mean, your family and mine and a couple of other people. Maybe twenty. But still…'

' _Advocate_ means to be in favour of, to argue for, to speak in support of. Alternatively, as a noun, it means someone who speaks or writes in support of something.'

'See, this is what I mean. I didn't have a clue what advocate meant until just now.'

'It's a perfectly commonplace word.'

Pebbles grinned. 'I'd have said _a normal word._ You say _commonplace._ It's those books of yours, right?'

'Unlike apparently everyone else in this village, I want to actually know some things other than how to trip on a net and fall in a stream.'

He let out a snort. 'Good luck with that. I don't think your Pa would approve.'

'Let him disapprove, then,' she said, shrugging. _It_ _'s all he ever does._

Neither of them was in a hurry, so Jeerala was unsurprised to see that, when they reached the fishing streams, they were the last to arrive. Rajava and Fall were stringing a net across one path of water. Meer-Lai and Ireethra were doing the same for another, while Lateesh and Silver lined up baskets nearby, ready to fill them with the day's catch. Just another Histcarp Run.

The Histcarp Run happened twice a year; once when the fish, in one swarming silver group, migrated from the food-rich but dangerous waters of the inner marshes, to the clearer and more open pools and streams on the outskirts of Black Marsh, where they would lay their eggs. Once the breeding season was over, they would make an equally long journey in the other directions. No sane fisherman would snare any Histcarp as they made their way to the breeding grounds, for fear that there would be none to catch next year, with no eggs laid. But on the way back, they were fair game.

So once a year, Jeerala was dragged out of bed early and pulled down to the fishing streams. This was a patch of the marsh where one river separated out into several fast-flowing, knee-high brooks. Blocking the streams meant that they had their pick of the fish, but getting nets across all but a few of them (Rajava ordered that a couple always be left, so that if something went wrong with the year's clutch of eggs, there would still be plenty of carp) was time-consuming, tedious and tricky. The speed at which the water flowed meant that often the nets would be washed away in the current, which meant either you sat by them all day making sure they weren't being knocked out of place, or you lost a bunch of fish and had to replace the net. Jeerala was usually on net-watching duty, which was most likely a good thing, because the alternative was to be doing the spearing or the net-hauling, and neither of those things was a good idea.

Net-hauling was simple – you just had to wait until the nets were full enough, then pull them in, which Jeerala might have been good at if she didn't seem to have an uncanny talent for dropping the nets. Spearing was harder still. Among the histcarp, whose meat sold for a tidy profit, there would always be fish they didn't want to see. Slaughterfish, for example, could bite through a net in seconds, and wreak havoc among a catch with their razor teeth. Which meant someone had to stand beside the streams and use the spears to stop the unwanted fish as they approached - a task that had more than once led to Jeerala finding herself upside down in the stream with a slaughterfish chewing on her tail.

'You're late,' Rajava remarked, as Jeerala and Pebbles dropped the fishing gear at his feet.

'Sorry, Rajava.' Pebbles gave a relaxed shrug. 'We had a lot to carry, that's all.'

'I daresay.' Rajava stooped and gathered up the nets in his arms. 'Right, the Run's not properly started yet, so we've got a little time. Two on each stream, as normal. We'll leave Numbers Five and Three unblocked this year.'

The group divided up quickly. Jeerala rolled her eyes as she saw her brother and Ireethra set off towards the farthest stream together. Knowing that if she didn't move fast, her father would pair up with her to make sure she couldn't do anything stupid, she grabbed Pebbles's arm. 'Come on. Let's grab a stream before we have to go with our dads.'

He blinked. 'Um, wouldn't it be better for us to go with some of the more experienced…' He trailed off, then nodded. 'You're right, let's go.'

They both knew what would happen if they fell under the command of their parents or elder siblings; every move they made would be declared wrong, and then deft, skilled hands would show them the correct way of doing it, while they sat there knowing they would never be able to do such a thing. It was better for the two disasters to be together, with no one to criticise.

They were the last to get their net strung up. It took both of them, eventually, jumping into the water and wading across to get it done. Jeerala had to admit this wasn't too unpleasant; if she was a true Argonian in one way, it was that she loved the water. Still having soaked breeches was a bit annoying.

With the stream blocked, they were set to begin, and that meant one of them had to do the net-watching, the other the spearing. 'We'd best swap after an hour or so,' Pebbles suggested. 'That way we can't get too bored.'

The truth was that both jobs were boring. Either you sat and gazed at a net, or you stood and gazed at fish. You got bored whichever one you did. But with spearing there was at least a bit of action – generally when you missed the slaughterfish and had to dive in to grab it with your bare hands as it snapped at the terrified Histcarp.

After one hour of lying on her stomach, gazing at the knots and trying not to fall asleep, occasionally rising to help Pebbles draw in a filled net, Jeerala pulled herself to her feet and gestured for him to pass over the spear. Slinging the weapon over her shoulder, she walked a little way upstream, knowing that when she inevitably missed, she'd need to leave herself plenty of space to run after the slaughterfish and try again before they could reach the nets. Positioning herself on a rock that jutted a little way out into the water, she pushed the spearhead down into the stream, so that the point sank into the mud, balanced her chin on the butt of the spear, and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Within five minutes the scene was beginning to blur in front of her eyes, so she shook herself and began what she called her boredom exercises – lists of interesting facts that she would recite to stop herself falling asleep. 'Khajiit name prefixes and suffixes,' she whispered. 'Exclusively male: dar, dro, jo. Exclusively female: daro, la, dra, ko. Gender neutral: S, Ma or M, Qa, Ra, Do, Ja or Ji or J… or are the J-prefixes male? Damn it.' She'd have to look it up when she got home. 'Right, next exercise – major cities of Hammerfell. Sentinel, Taneth, Dragonstar, Elinhir, Gilane, Hegathe, Rihad, Skaven. And Stros M'kai, kind of.' She huffed and stole another look at the river, almost hoping to see some kind of water snake that she could spear, but there was nothing. 'Fine, the Bosmer pantheon of Gods: Auri-El, Y'ffre, Arkay, Z'en-'

' _Jee!'_

Jeerela jolted her head upright, spinning around to face Pebbles, from whom the shout had issued. He was standing in the stream, the water up to his midriff, wrestling with something beneath the surface.

'You let it swim right past you!' he gasped.

'Damn it!' Jeerala tugged at the spear, realising too late that it had sunk so far into the stream bed that considerably more force was going to be needed to get it out than had been necessary to get it in. She threw all her weight upwards, and was rewarded with the weapon pinging up out of the water with a sharp sucking sound. Her moment of triumph was quickly quashed when her own momentum carried her backwards, sending her sprawling.

Cursing under her breath, Jeerala pelted downstream to reach him. His hands were clasped around the midsection of a slaughterfish as long as his arms, and his teeth were gritted as it writhed in his grip, its snapping teeth slashing holes in his tunics.

'Stay still!' Jeerala shouted, pulling back the spear. 'I'll get it.'

'You'll hit me!'

'Then throw it out onto the bank!'

'I tried that once already, it just wriggled back in!'

'Throw it further!'

'I can't, it won't stop squirming –'

'Then throw it down here and I'll stab it.'

'You'll miss.'

Jeerala opened her mouth to protest, then realised he was right. 'It had to happen,' she moaned softly, and jumped into the stream.

Using her tail as a counterbalance against the push of the water, she strode a few paces towards the still-struggling Pebbles, wishing she'd brought a knife with her. That might be a less unwieldy weapon than the one she now had to somehow use to spear the slaughterfish without stabbing Pebbles and without poking it out of his grasp.

'OK,' she said, breathing in deeply. 'Hold on.'

'I _am_ holding on!'

Jeerala drew back the spear and angled up her blow, aiming for the area just past the slaughterfish's gills. At the same moment, she felt a fierce, sharp pain shoot up her leg. She let out a yelp and whipped her head down to see a second slaughterfish digging its teeth into her ankle, a few of its needlelike teeth punching through the gaps between her scales. Instinctively she stabbed down at it. The blow glanced off its side, but it was enough to make it release its grip. And as it let go, Pebbles finally lost his hold of the first slaughterfish. With a blur of grey, it dropped back into the water.

Pebbles swore violently, and Jeerala slapped her free hand to her forehead. They always managed to mess up somehow. _She_ always messed up.

She caught Pebbles looking out towards the other streams, where their families were flawlessly, competently working, and shook his head at him. 'Don't call them yet!' she hissed. They still had a chance to stop the slaughterfish before they reached the nets – the river grew shallower and more choked by weeds, and even a sleek, sharp-toothed slaughterfish would have to slow down to get through. She hauled herself out onto the bank and raced forwards, her eyes narrowing. This time, just for once, she was going to sort things out for herself.

The first slaughterfish was already at the nets, and trails of red were beginning to work up through the water where its teeth were already at work on the panicking histcarp. Jeerala dashed to the edge of the bank and stabbed down with the spear. She missed, her fingers slipped on the sodden wood, and it fell from her grasp, instantly floating out into the middle of the stream.

That was that, then. They'd have to call their parents over, and they would have to kill the slaughterfish – the other one was arriving now – and the creatures would have half this catch ripped to shreds by the time he got there. Her father would split her and Pebbles up so there could be no more mistakes, and rant about how she never put her mind into this work and her blunders lost them money. And yet again she'd be reminded that she didn't belong here.

'You've still got one weapon left, Jee.'

Jeerala's head snapped up, her eyes widening. She knew the voice, though she'd not heard it in almost a year.

'Uncle Ushara?'

And there he was, calmly leaning against a tree on the other side of the stream, watching her with a look of relaxed amusement. 'Go on, Jeerala. You know what to do.'

He was right. She did.

She looked down at her hands, swallowed hard, curled her fingers inwards, and _reached,_ reached with her mind. She reached for that spark within herself that Ushara had taught her how to wake. She reached until she felt that beautiful, beautiful power that her family told her not to use running through her veins, and a chill spread over her hands as her fingers closed around two swirling balls of frost.

Clutching the spells close to her chest, she looked out over the water. One of the slaughterfish was near to the bank, dangerously close to the knots that held the net. Without hesitation, Jeerala pointed her arm in its direction and released the spell. A thin spear of ice cut through air, cut through water, and cut through the slaughterfish.

Instantly she spun around, seeking out the other. She watched the way the histcarp fled, following their retreat back to its source, and found it. It was moving fast, chasing down a whole cluster of fish. Jeerala aimed just ahead of it and let go of the power.

She barely even needed to aim. The slaughterfish's charge went wild and stopped, and the weight of the ice spike slowly dragged it down under the water. The bluish-white tip of the icicle showed for a moment above the surface before being swallowed up by the murk.

'There you are.' Ushara stepped away from the tree, took a short run up, and hurdled the stream in a single bound. 'Nothing to it.'

Jeerala's face broke into a grin, and she threw her arms around him. 'It's so good to see you!'

He chuckled. 'And you, Jeejee. And you.'

She let no one call her by that name. Not even her mother, nowadays. But for the one person who never judged her, never made her feel like she didn't fit it, never told her she had to live out her days in this village… well, exceptions could be made.

'What's going on here?'

Jeerala let her uncle go and turned to see the rest of the families approaching – her father in their lead, surprise flickering in his eyes. 'Ushara. I didn't really think you'd come.'

'Good to see you too, big brother.' Ushara marched forwards and hugged Rajava tightly; Jeerala noticed that her father hesitated before returning the gesture. 'A guy's got to come home for special occasions, right?'

'Real special,' Pebbles muttered, moving to stand beside her with rushes trailing from his horns, and Jeerala snorted. It was common knowledge that Ushara only returned to Hejal for the Histcarp run because Rajava had, went he'd first left the village, instructed him to return for it every year to lend a hand, not because he found any kind of excitement in it.

Rajava stepped back, looking at his brother closely, and it struck Jeerala, as it always did when she saw them together, how similar they looked and how different they really were. They had the same sturdy build, the same brown scales, the same yellow eyes. Only their horn shapes and Ushara's lack of head-feathers were different – on the outside. Her father – firm, asking nothing from life, living every day as it came, never showing any real emotion, dressed in his rough working tunic – was as different to his adventurous, warm-hearted, open, mage robe-clad younger brother as Skyrim was to Elsweyr.

'You can help the children,' Rajava said, nodding in the direction of Jeerala and Pebbles. 'They seem to be having trouble.'

'None at all, from what I could see. Your daughter just bullseyed two slaughterfish. Right through the gills.'

'She also somehow managed to let those slaughterfish get past her. Last time I looked, she was on spearing duty.'

'Then let's not bother with the spear, and she can use the weapon she's good at.'

Rajava let out a terse sigh from between his teeth. 'Ushara. We've been through this before. I never wanted you to teach magic to Jeerala in the first place. It's not good for her.'

'I'm right here,' Jeerala muttered.

'Try telling him that,' Pebbles sighed.

'And why should that be so?'

'Because if you teach the girl magic, she'll get ideas into her head, same as you did. She already spends too much time with those books of hers. She's always using those weird magic orbs to go wandering out at night looking for strange plants –'

'The correct term is candlelight spells, Rajava.'

'-and she almost walked right into a wamasu lair once. If you didn't teach her those spells, she'd stay at home where it's safe.'

'Where she's bored,' Ushara said quietly. 'Admit it, Java, your daughter's the same as I am. She doesn't want to stay here.'

Rajava whacked his tail down on the ground. 'I don't need you to tell me what my own child wants in life!'

'Have you tried asking her?'

Jeerala swallowed as her father turned his head towards her. His eyes drilled into her for a second. Then he turned away, scooping up the fishing spear he'd dropped as he'd reached them.

'She's too young to know what she really wants,' he muttered. 'Let's get back to work.'

He strode back towards his stream, and after a moment's pause, Meer-Lai, Ireethra, Lateesh, Fall and Silver did the same, sending smiles and nods in Ushara's direction, but nothing more. Jeerala stood beside her uncle and her friend, her jaw clenched so tight that it was painful.

'Don't worry about him, Jee. Not right now, anyway.' Ushara placed a hand on her shoulder. 'Come on. Let's get on with the boring work. I'll teach you something new when we're done.'

'What school of magic?'

'All of them. I've brought more spell tomes with me than you've caught fish, I bet you.' He smiled at her. 'You keep using those ice spikes on any fish we don't want – you won't miss.'

'While we're working, will you tell me about where you've been?'

'Just about everywhere, Jee.' Her uncle gave a quiet laugh. 'After I left you last time, I decided to head for Morrowind – they're not fond of Argonians there, but it's always nice to give your people a better name, right? So I headed out into the ashlands, and three days in, I hear this voice above me, and without any more warning some random Bosmer mage falls from the sky and ploughs into the ground in front of me. Squash. I had a peek through his stuff, and it turns out he'd got some random spell scrolls that would make him fly, but he'd forgotten to bring any that would make him _land…'_

The fish darted on through the streams as Jeerala threw back her head and laughed for what felt like the first time since she'd last seen her uncle. The last time since she'd been able to speak to the only person on Nirn who really knew who she was.

The only person who'd ever bothered to ask.

* * *

 **I had fun trying to imagine what life might be like in a tiny Black Marsh community. Most likely isolated. Not the kind of place to be if you're an adventurous spirit like Jeerala.** **The village of Hejal, the idea of the Histcarp Run, and all these characters were invented by me (histcarp appear in _Skyrim,_ so I just added a little more to the lore about them, since there's not much information on them.)**

 **I'm aware this chapter isn't particularly action-packed. That's sort of the point - this is the humdrum existence Jeerala is stuck in and wants to escape. And next chapter, things will be kicking off...**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**And so I conform to my time-honoured accidental strategy of writing one chapter and making it short, intending for the rest to be that way... and then passing the 7000 words mark with the second chapter. Some day I will learn to keep my stories under control.**

 **Anyway, here is chapter two! I hope you enjoy - things will be getting a little more intense now...**

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CHAPTER TWO

Jeerala found her father hard to fathom. But one thing she'd always known about him was that he simply couldn't stand the extraordinary.

For generations, Rajava's ancestors had fished the rivers in this part of Black Marsh. Every one of them had emerged from the egg and picked up a fishing spear. Their years had been spent drawing fish from the streams and pools, and every day had been the same until they breathed their last. That, Rajava had told Jeerala many times, was the way things were meant to be. Demand nothing from the world, seek no trouble, and your life can go by without danger in it. Live, fish, maybe find love, have children. People like them, he said, had no place seeking anything more.

And that was why the reunions between her father and her uncle were always strained, because seeking more was exactly what Ushara had done. A visit to Fernglade to sell off the day's catch had started it, Jeerala had been told. While Rajava set to work haggling, Ushara had wandered off, browsing the market. And on one stall, he'd found a book. The binding had been thick, orange in colour, and there had been a symbol stamped on the cover – three conjoined circles.

'When the stallholder told me it was a candlelight spell tome, I thought it might just be something useful. I'd never have to carry a lit torch around again,' Ushara had said once. 'But once I bought it and started using it, I couldn't stop. There was something entrancing about the magic.'

Ushara had started saving up his coin, taking every opportunity to travel out through the marshes into the larger settlements to buy more tomes. His family had tried to talk him out of it, had despaired, had praised his sensible older brother for being wise enough to stay at home. Ushara was doing something different, something dangerous, and the power he was learning to wield was something unnatural. Out of the ordinary. Far too abnormal for a secluded little village.

Time had gone by. Rajava and Ushara's mother had been killed by brigands on a solitary walk - she'd always been a little careless. They'd grieved and moved on. Ushara's magical skill had grown. Rajava had met and married Swims-In-Streams. Then their father had gone out to check a patch of herbs he'd heard were growing nearby, and he'd never returned. It happened sometimes, in the marshes. So Rajava, his hands full helping to care for his new-hatched son, had sent a message to his old friend Follows-The-Fall, asking for help with the fishing. Fall had arrived, bringing his wife and children with him, and had decided to stay.

A week later, Ushara left Hejal.

'They didn't need me anymore,' he'd explained. 'I didn't want to let down my parents by leaving while they were still alive, and after they died, I knew Rajava would need me around to keep his business going. But with Fall and Lateesh living in Hejal, Rajava would be all right. So I did what I'd wanted to do for years. I got out, and I went to study magic.'

There were schools of magic in Black Marsh, but Ushara had wanted nothing more than to put distance between himself and his homeland. He'd headed for the Cyrodiil Mages' Guild first, but in every branch of the Guild in the province, he'd been turned away. Untrained mages with the ability to cast a few weak spells were of no interest to them. And soon enough he'd realised that in Cyrodiil, magic was far too closely entwined with politics for his liking. And so he'd travelled north, to a magic school he'd heard was far more relaxed, far more independent, far more accepting to those who might not have skill, but who did have potential. Skyrim's College of Winterhold.

'There was this High Elf woman standing in front of the bridge to the College,' Ushara's story went. 'Looked at me down her nose and asked what I was doing there. I told her, she asked what my magical aptitude was, she asked me to demonstrate a simple spell, and once I'd done it, I was in. That was when I knew I'd come home. They didn't care about how much I knew, just how much I wanted to know.'

And after years of study there, Ushara had become a master of the arcane, able to fight, to conjure, to twist the fabric of reality. He'd felt confident enough at last to visit his former home. Jeerala still remembered the first time she'd seen him. She'd been seven at the time, and she'd often heard her father talking about - or more frequently complaining about – his wayward brother. But Ushara had not been the distant, chaotic figure she'd expected. This bright-eyed man with his golden-brown robes had laughed easily, spoken to her like an adult, asked her about her life. She'd asked him to show her some magic, and he'd conjured a glowing orb in the palm of his hand, frozen the surface of the river so that she could skid along it, giggling, and summoned a spectral wolf spirit that she had chased around the village with her eyes alight. And then suddenly her father was shouting at Ushara, and Ushara was shouting back, and she'd been too young to understand then that Rajava was afraid she'd become just as interested in magic as Ushara had.

His fears had been realised. Six months of travelling Tamriel later, Ushara visited Hejal again, and he brought with him a pile of books. Regular books mostly, stories or historical accounts, but also one orange-bound spell tome. He'd shown her how to learn the spell, and the knowledge had imprinted itself in her mind. That night, she'd lain awake for hours, a candlelight spell hovering above her head, as she flipped through the pages of one of the books her uncle had given her. Meer-Lai had pulled his blankets over his head and pleaded with her to turn out the light, but she hadn't listened. She couldn't listen, not when there was so much to learn.

Things had gone on from there.

Every time Ushara visited Hejal, he would teach her something new. He started off small – light-creating and path-finding spells, spells that couldn't possibly cause any damage. From there he moved on to mild Illusion – spells to muffle and calm and become invisible. Then, when she was twelve – 'old enough to know not to use them lightly' – he'd taught her the most basic Destruction spells. Soon Jeerala was lighting the cooking fires with bursts of flame from her hands, frying insects with bolts of lighting, using the frostbite spell to chill her drinks in warm weather. Her father had been furious, but Ushara had taught the spells to her in secret and made her promise not to use them until he'd left on his travels again. By the time Rajava realised that his daughter was becoming a Destruction mage, his brother was already on his way out of the province. All the fuming Rajava could do was make Jeerala promise never to use the spells except in self-defence.

On Ushara's next visit, Rajava had watched them like a hawk, and when Ushara had presented his customary gifts to the family, he'd slammed a hand down in protest when Jeerala had been presented with a trio of apprentice-level Destruction spell books, as well as one for novice Conjuration. To Jeerala's relief, her mother had intervened, managing to persuade her father that there could be no harm in her learning magic for fun as long as she never got a chance to use it. And since Rajava clearly never planned to give her that chance, he'd reluctantly stepped back and allowed Jeerala to learn the spells. He'd appeared relieved on the next visit when Ushara's present to Jeerala had been a simple silver necklace – not realising, of course, that it was enchanted to boost her magicka regeneration. Still, Jeerala knew that her magical aptitude would be limited until she could get her hands on proper mage robes and more training.

She'd told her father, of course, that she wanted to leave Hejal, to study magic properly as Ushara had. He hadn't reacted well.

'That is where I draw the line,' he'd snapped. 'I have no control over my brother, but you're my daughter, and I have a responsibility for you. I'm not having you putting yourself in danger by meddling in powers you don't understand. Knowing a few basic spells is one thing. Becoming a real mage – that's another. Ushara meddles with artefacts no mortal should ever touch, goes to places that we weren't meant to go, finds knowledge that it's dangerous for people like us to have in our minds. I'm not having that happen to you.'

'Even if it's what I want?'

'It's _not_ what you want, Jeerala. You're young and you don't understand yet. Ushara's life looks exciting to you, but you've never seen how dangerous it is.'

'Neither have you!'

'I hear his stories and I've seen what it's done to him. He's hardly an Argonian anymore. He's gone too far from the Hist and he barely remembers our people's ways. No child of mine is losing touch with the Hist.'

'I won't! All I want is to learn –'

'You don't know what you want. What you really want is to be safe. And what I want is what's best for you.'

Jeerala had stormed from the house, fighting back tears. 'When have you ever asked me what's best for me?'

That had been the first argument they'd had on the subject. More had followed. Every few months, Jeerala would gather her courage and bring it up again. And every time, Rajava would lose his temper and insist that she wouldn't be happy outside Black Marsh.

 _I know what will make me happy,_ Jeerala had thought again and again, but any time she found the nerve to say it out loud, he'd ignored her. She didn't understand why he seemed so intent on holding her back. What did he get out of making her unhappy? He was her father. He was meant to care for her. Fathers in the books she read often seemed to be wise mentors, setting their children's feet on the paths to their destinies. (Sometimes they were also the hero's archnemesis, but while Rajava might be irritating, Jeerala didn't think he would start setting out plans for world domination any time soon. After all, that would require him to leave his fishing nets to direct his armies.)

Now, she looked at Ushara, standing on the riverbank, occasionally sending an ice spike into the water to spear an unwanted fish, and wished that he were her father. She knew it was a cruel thing to think, but she was sure he'd make a better parent than Rajava. Less demanding, more adventurous. Ushara always understood her, always listened to her. Wasn't that what fathers were meant to do? And if Ushara were her father, he'd probably have already taken her to the College of Winterhold to begin her studies. _Instead, I'm stuck here, fighting slaughterfish and staring at nets._

On a whim, she sent a plume of flame towards the water, grinning as it vanished on contact with the surface and dissolved into smoke. A small snort came from behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Ireethra watching, looking even more disapproving than she normally did.

Jeerala disliked Ireethra enough anyway – what Meer-Lai saw in her she didn't know – but this was the final straw. 'What's your problem?' she demanded.

Ireethra met her gaze coolly. 'Why do you think it's somehow clever for you to be so… different?'

'And why do you think it's so laudable for you to be so boring?'

'Don't start on her, Reeth.' Pebbles hurried towards them, shooting anxious looks between his sister and his friend. 'She's not doing anything wrong.'

Ireethra shrugged and turned away, apparently deciding that her little brother and the black sheep of the village weren't worth arguing with. Jeerala glared at her retreating back for a moment, then turned to Pebbles. 'You really don't mind it?'

'It's none of my business. Scares the scales off me, I'd never have the guts to use it, but you seem to have it sorted.' He glanced down awkwardly. 'And the others are wrong to pick on you because you happen to be interested in something a little different.' He paused. 'What does laudable mean?'

'Praiseworthy or meritorious.'

'You know what? I reckon I've worked out the real reason you use these fancy words. It's so if you get into an argument with someone, you can just confuse them until they give in.'

'Very perspicacious.'

Pebbles stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. 'I give up.'

'All right, team. We've caught enough for one day.' Rajava's shout echoes across the clearing. 'Pull up your nets.'

Jeerala's shoulders sagged with relief. 'Thank the Hist.' That was one day over out of maybe three or four – the Histcarp Run didn't last long, and some years they stopped early if they caught enough. There was no point catching too much if the demand ran out.

Ushara beckoned Jeerala and Pebbles over. 'It'll be easier with all three of us. You two take this side, I'll get the other.'

With some effort, and a great deal of confusion and conflicting instructions, they hauled in the final group of fish. The family had, together, heaved in five or six large baskets' worth. They'd sell well, Jeerala thought vaguely. Raise the coin for some new tunics, or for the new furniture that Catches-Silver and Shujeema would be needing when their egg hatched in a few months' time. Rajava would give Jeerala a small share, but there was hardly any point. The only chance she got to spend money was when she went into Fernglade with the family to help them carry things to and from the market, and they were always keeping an eye on her then. They'd never let her touch anything related to mage gear.

They allowed her books, and she was glad about that. They didn't complain, either, about the beads, ribbons and charms she used to decorate her horns. Sometimes she'd save up to buy a tunic with a little more colour or pattern than usual. But what she really wanted, she was forbidden to touch.

'Who's going to take this batch down?' Meer-Lai asked, tipping the contents of his net into one of the baskets.

'Silver and I will do it.' Fall swung his neck in a circle, clearly trying to work out some stiffness after his day spent bending over the water. 'We'll take the raft down.'

'Make sure you're back before nightfall.' Lateesh grasped his arm. 'Go armed. Keep away from the sharp rocks. Don't let them take those fish for a coin less than they're worth, and if it looks like it's getting dark, don't bother buying anything, just come straight home –'

Fall chuckled and gently pushed her away. 'How long have I been doing this, Lateesh? Silver and I know how to make it to Fernglade and back.'

Silver clapped his mother on the shoulder. 'Give Shujeema my love. Tell her I won't be long.'

'We're all set to go home, then.' Rajava gathered up his equipment. 'Don't leave your gear behind. Ushara, keep an eye on the kids.'

'Kids?' Pebbles repeated, frowning, dropping the nets he'd been picking up in his indignation.

'Don't mind him.' Ushara placed a hand on his shoulder. 'He's just old.'

Jeerala grinned. 'Come on, let's not get left behind.'

Returning to Hejal was easier than getting there – with Rajava, Meer-Lai and Ireethra leading, the plants that had hampered their way before were trodden down and beaten back. Sick as Jeerala was of the sight of the cluster of houses that passed for a village, it was still a relief to see them again. She did at least have an afternoon to relax and a chance to get some rest before she was forced out to battle with nets and slaughterfish again. And then there was Ushara's promise. New spells.

'Right, let's make sure we've not left anything up at the streams.' Rajava dropped his gear in a pile. 'We've got Fall and Silver's stuff here… Meer-Lai, where are your spears?'

'Here, pa.'

'Good lad. Jeerala?'

Rolling her eyes, Jeerala dropped her armful of tackle onto the pile. 'That's everything.'

Rajava leaned over it, frowning. 'You should have two more nets.'

'Pebbles has them.'

Rajava glanced at Pebbles, and Pebbles gulped. 'I… I was getting them.'

'Do you have them?'

'No.'

'Why don't you have them?'

'I was picking up my stuff and then I kind of got distracted. By what you said about us being kids. And I forgot them.'

Lateesh clucked under her breath. 'Pebbles, we know you're grown up now, but it's no reason to be careless…'

'I'll get them.' Pebbles sighed heavily.

'Not on your own, you won't.' Meer-Lai picked up one of the spears and gestured towards the streams. 'It's one thing in the early morning, but every beast in the swamp will be out there right now. It's dangerous to go alone. I'll come with you.'

Pebbles nodded, the relief clear in his eyes. 'Thanks, Meer-Lai.'

'Don't take too long!' Rajava called after them, as they vanished into the bushes. 'We'll come and find you if you're not back soon.'

Much as she liked Pebbles, Jeerala couldn't stop pleasure sparking from within her as he and Meer-Lai vanished – the fewer people around, the more likely it was that she and Ushara could talk about magic without being interrupted. Her uncle seemed to have had the same idea; he winked at her and gestured towards a corner of the clearing. Here, a pair of thick-trunked trees grew close together, their branches intertwining. Many years ago, Jeerala had tied one of her old blankets behind the two trunks, and pulled a couple of logs into this makeshift shelter to act as seats. This was her private place; the blanket meant that no one else could see her when she was inside. Sometimes, she'd be reading a book there, and Pebbles would stop by for a chat or to recount the newest family disagreement, but for the most part, it was her place, and hers alone. Which meant it was also the perfect location for Ushara to teach her a little magic undisturbed.

She noticed that Rajava was sending them a venomous look as they made their way over to the den, but he made no move to stop them. Either he was more concerned with putting away his tools, or he wasn't in the mood for another argument.

'So.' Jeerala dropped herself down on one of the logs, clasping her hands together. 'What did you bring?'

Ushara grinned at her and unfastened the straps of his backpack. 'You'll like this. I think it's about time you moved on to the apprentice level Conjuration spells. How've your familiars been?'

'They stay for a pretty long time when I conjure them now.' Jeerala inched forward on her seat. 'I can't use the spell much, though, dad won't let me inside the house if I've got a familiar trailing after me. Why? What kind of Conjuration spell did you bring? A new bound weapon, or – nothing to do with necromancy, right? You know it makes my scales crawl. Or that soul trapping thing? Or – atronachs?'

'Right on the last one.' Ushara pulled a purple-bound tome from his bag and waved it in the air in front of her. 'Flame atronach, specifically. And your dad definitely won't want you in the house with one of these. You do have to be careful with them around wood. They'll set fire to things.' He leaned forward to look her in the eye. 'You got that, Jeejee? I know you're much less clumsy with magic than you are with other things, but you've got to be careful.'

'I will be.' Jeerala nodded firmly. 'I'm not stupid, I've read about atronachs, I know that they explode if damaged too much, and that they leave a trail of fire behind them, and all that. I won't conjure any in my bedroom.'

Ushara pressed the book into her hands. ''Course you won't. Go on, then, it's all yours.'

'Thanks,' Jeerala breathed, and pulled the book open.

Reading a spell tome was a strange experience. As soon as the cover was opened, the magic contained within the book would somehow latch onto your mind, sensing whether or not the reader already possessed the knowledge stored within the pages. As this one found that Jeerala didn't, the runes and symbols inked onto the pages began to glow with a fierce purple light, so strong that when she blinked, spots danced in front of her eyes. The pages ruffled, then began to flip as fast as if a wind were pushing against them, and Jeerala's vision blurred. For a moment, her head felt oddly hot, as if the spell were being literally, physically burned into her mind. Then the light and warmth faded, the glow stopped, the last page turned – and the book tore itself apart with a burst of paper and a faint _phwut_ sound.

Jeerala brushed her hands together, sending shreds of the pages scattering onto the earth. 'I wonder if anyone will ever invent spell tomes that don't pop their clogs once you've read them.'

'Not in our lifetimes, most likely.' Ushara stood up. 'Let's see if you can do it. Best conjure it over there, on that grassy stretch. She won't set fire to the trees, there, and she won't be too near the water.'

Pursing her lips, Jeerala rose as well, calling for that new knowledge within her. The purple light began to weave around her hand, and she extended her palm towards the patch of ground Ushara had indicated. Casting a new spell for the first time was always a little tricky, but this was only apprentice level. She already knew the apprentice Destruction spells – this shouldn't pose any more of a challenge. She sucked in a long breath, screwed up her face with the effort of concentration, and cast the spell.

The purple rip in the air appeared in front of her, something she had seen many times before, but what appeared in it was larger and brighter than the spectral familiars that were all she'd been able to conjure in her past. The atronach was tall as she was, maybe taller, its entire body aflame, its every movement graceful. The summoning portal vanished, and Jeerala's atronach remained floating a little way above the grass, its calm face fixed on Jeerala's.

'Wow,' Jeerala murmured.

'Nice work.' Ushara gave her a playful punch. 'Not as big as the first atronach I summoned, though.'

'She's _beautiful.'_ Eyes wide, Jeerala edged towards the elegant result of her spell. The atronach turned a slow, flowing backflip, and Jeerala clenched her hands into fists of triumph. This was what her father didn't understand, what he'd never see. This incredible creature, called into the mortal world by her, and only her… he'd never feel this sense of accomplishment, this _wonder._

She gazed at the atronach for a few seconds more, then silently willed it to float a little way to the left. It did so. _Back to the right,_ Jeerala thought, and again, it obeyed.

'You seem to have it under control.' Ushara clapped a hand down on her shoulder. 'Nice work. She won't stay for long, so enjoy it while it lasts.'

'Would she do anything I told her to?'

'As long as it was logically and physically possible, yes. She can't fly, for example. But she'll attack something, if it attacks you. You won't even have to ask her to do that. She'll defend you to the last.'

'Does she have a sense of right and wrong?'

Ushara blinked. 'That is not a question I have ever asked myself before. I doubt it. She's not… well, she's not an intelligent creature, like you or I.'

'How do you know?'

Ushara scratched the base of his horns. 'I have no idea. I've never considered them to be intelligent. The teachers at the College never said they were. I guess we'd have to be one of them to know, since they can't speak.'

'I could ask her to turn two backflips if she's intelligent.'

'I'm not sure atronachs are made to carry out commands that subtle, Jee.'

'I might as well try.'

With a chuckle, Ushara shook his head. 'And if she didn't, you'd never know whether it was because she was unintelligent, because she didn't understand, because there's some kind of atronach law that says you don't let the mortals know you can think… I say, just enjoy the fact that you could summon her, and leave it at that.'

So Jeerala settled herself down cross-legged on the grass and gazed at her atronach, watching its flips and turns and the way its inner flame burned, until at last it collapsed in on itself and vanished, leaving behind only a smattering of ash on the ground and a few patches of burned grass. She grinned for a moment at the place where it had disappeared, then rose to her feet. 'What's next?'

'Up to you. I've brought you are more advanced healing spell, or I've got a couple of –'

'Pa!'

The voice was Meer-Lai's, and never before had Jeerala heard her brother sound so desperate, so... _terrified_. She was running before she knew it, forgetting that the spell tomes were still lying in the den waiting to be read. Something was wrong, because that was the only reason Meer-Lai would be so afraid, and if her brother was in trouble, she had to help.

She reached the centre of the clearing about the same time as Meer-Lai; Ushara was following hard on her heels. Her brother skidded to a halt in front of her. He no longer had his fishing spear, there was a smear of what looked like blood on the arm of his tunic - and Pebbles was nowhere to be seen.

'Where's Pa?' he burst out, at the same moment as Jeerala shouted, 'Where's Pebbles?'

The door to Jeerala's house banged open, and Rajava emerged, his eyes round. 'What's happening, son?'

'Pebbles.' Meer-Lai moved over to him, his sides heaving as he fought for breath. 'He… we were attacked. By a wamasu.'

'By the Hist,' Ushara whispered, and Rajava grasped at the wall of the house, as if needing something to steady him. Jeerala felt a cold terror run through her blood and grip her heart. _No. Not Pebbles._

Meer-Lai rubbed furiously at his eyes, leaving wet streaks across his face. 'It just came out of nowhere. We were carrying the spears back, and it came from the undergrowth and grabbed him.'

'He's dead?' Rajava's words came out so hoarsely they were almost inaudible.

'He wasn't when I last saw him. The wamasu grabbed him and ran off, and he was still alive then. I threw my spear after it, but it didn't even seem to feel it.' Meer-Lai shook his head. 'I couldn't think of anything to do but run back here and get help.'

Rajava stared at him for a moment, then nodded. 'Are you hurt?'

'Not badly. I ran at it when it got Pebbles, and it hit me with its tail. It's just a small cut. It didn't seem interested in me at all.'

'Right. Go inside and wrap it up. Ushara, Jeerala – go with him. I need to tell the others.'

For once, Jeerala had no intention of questioning a word her father had said. Wordlessly, she followed Meer-Lai inside. Ushara pulled the door to after them and marched over to Meer-Lai. 'Sit down and pull up your sleeve.'

Meer-Lai did so, tugging the torn cloth upwards to expose an area of dented scales around a single red gash. With a flick of his fingers, Ushara conjured a ball of golden light into each of his hands. 'Stay still,' he said firmly. 'I'll fix this up in a heartbeat.'

Frowning, Meer-Lai leaned away from him. 'Pa said to just bandage it – '

'Would you rather have to wait weeks for that to heal, or would you prefer to have it mended in ten seconds so that you can help your father go after that wamasu and save Pebbles?'

Meer-Lai blinked, looked at him for a few moments, then seemed to see the sense of what Ushara was saying. 'I guess you're right.'

'I am.' Ushara placed his hands just above the wound and began directing the magic down onto it. 'Don't move. And don't put too much strain on that arm for a while.'

Jeerala inched closer, eager to see the spell in action. She'd used healing magic on herself a few times, but never on an injury of this scale. It was as thrilling as she'd imagined it would be, watching the gold strands of light weave around her brother's arm, seeing the edges of the wound press themselves together, the blood flow stop, the cracks vanishing from the broken scales.

'See, Meer,' she breathed. 'That's why we need magic.'

Before her brother could respond, the door swung open again, and the rest of the inhabitants of the village – barring Fall and Silver, still off selling the fish – traipsed inside. Lateesh's eyes were swollen with tears, and Ireethra looked around her with an odd blankness, as if she expected to wake from a dream any second. Even Shujeema, who was related to Pebbles only by marriage, seemed stunned. Swims-In-Streams had her hand on Lateesh's arm.

Rajava strode over to the table and stood facing them. 'All right. Pebbles has been taken by a wamasu, but it took him alive. There's a chance it could keep him that way for a while, if it's got a way to go back to its lair. We can't give up on him.'

'No.' Lateeshchoked out the word. 'I won't believe my boy's dead until I see it with my own eyes.'

'We need to go after it.' Ireethra clenched her fists. 'If Pebbles is still alive, we have to save him. And if he's not, that wamasu is going to pay for what it's done to my brother.'

Shujeema glanced around at them. 'I can't go with you,' she whispered. 'I have to stay near the hatching pool. My egg…'

'Of course.' Rajava nodded. 'Ushara will stay here and make sure you're safe.'

' _What?'_ Ushara's jaw dropped. 'Rajava, are you insane? Face it – I'm the most powerful fighter here. I've killed frost trolls in Skyrim, senche-tigers in Elsweyr, even werewolves, for the Hist's sake. You need me. You really think you're going to take down a wamasu with fishing spears?'

Rajava's gaze hardened. 'It's been done before. My father killed one.'

' _Our_ father,' Ushara snapped. 'But that was different. He'd been tracking it for days, he had a trap prepared. You're going in blind.'

'We can't risk fighting a wamasu with spells flying around. You'd hit one of us. We don't know anything about how to fight alongside mages. We do know about fighting alongside each other.' Rajava folded his arms. 'Besides… I need you here to protect Shujeema, Streams, and Jeerala. I need someone I trust to stay with them, someone who can defend them if the wamasu finds its way here.'

Ushara's gaze softened slightly, but Jeerala shook her head. 'Wait, wait, wait. Did you just say he needs to stay here to protect Shujeema, ma, and _me?'_

'You're not coming. And that is the end of the matter. I don't even want to start this argument.' Rajava fixed her in his gaze. 'You are seventeen years old. And I don't want to be blunt, but you barely know one end of a spear from another.'

Jeerala swallowed hard; her throat felt tight. 'I can fight –'

' _No.'_ Ravaja moved around the table, placing his hands on her shoulders. 'By the Hist, Jee. You think I'm taking my only daughter into a wamasu lair? Meer-Lai's an adult, but you… I'm not putting you in that danger. I can't.'

Swims-In-Streams pushed past the others to reach them. 'He's right, Jee. We know you're brave, and we know Pebbles is your friend. But you have to stay.'

There was no point arguing. Jeerala could think of nothing to do but nod. 'OK,' she managed to get out.

'Good girl.' Rajava let out a shaky breath. 'We won't take any risks, and we'll be back soon.'

'Rajava, please.' Ushara's tail was swishing like that of an agitated Khajiit – not that Jeerala had ever seen any Khajiit, but she'd read about their body language. 'Let me come.'

'No. Ushara. Listen.' Rajava looked his brother in the eyes. ' _Protect my family.'_

'What about protecting my brother?'

'If you want to help me, you'll look after my wife and daughter.' Rajava turned away. 'Meer-Lai, Lateesh, Ireethra – get hold of all the weapons you can carry. Spears, knives, hatchets, everything, but don't overburden yourself. Let's get going.'

He marched over to the door and shoved it open; Jeerala knew he would be going to fetch his woodcutting axe. Swims-In-Streams caught hold of his hand, and he paused in the doorway, leaned forward to touch the end of his nose to hers and whisper something Jeerala didn't catch. Then he hurried out into the clearing. Ireethra and Lateesh – the latter still sniffing, but with a new determination sparking in her eyes – followed. Jeerala was left standing with her mother, her uncle and Shujeema. Her tiny home suddenly felt even smaller than normal.

'All we can do is wait,' Shujeema said softly, sinking down onto a chair.

Ushara folded his arms and turned his back on the rest of them, his eyes burning into the wall. Jeerala had seen him like this before; it was what he did when he was thinking hard, when he didn't want anyone to disturb him and interrupt his train of thought. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, and Jeerala was given the sudden impression that he had not let this matter slide, that he was not content to sit here and wait for his brother's return, that he had something in his head he wasn't about to reveal to the rest of them. That he had a plan.

She thought about sneaking out of the house to collect the spell tomes he'd brought, but she knew that her mother would never let her out of the door with a wamasu about. So she slipped upstairs instead, returned with a couple of books clasped under her arm, and began reading. It was hard to focus on the words; harder still with her mother letting out frequent sighs, and Ushara pacing up and down the room.

Still, she'd always had a knack for losing herself in books, so eventually the background noise faded, she was able to block out her worry over Pebbles, and the world shrank to the size of the page. So it came as something of a surprise when Ushara suddenly whirled around and slammed his palm down on the table.

'That's it!' he shouted, making Shujeema yelp softly, Swims-In-Streams lean backward, and Jeerala snap her head up.

'What's it?' Shujeema ventured.

'Wamasu.' Ushara dropped onto a stool, placed his elbows on the tabletop and his snout in his hands. 'Think about this. Everything we know about what happened makes no sense. A wamasu comes this close to civilisation, it runs off with a boy, but doesn't kill him, and doesn't even attack his companion. That isn't natural behaviour. Wamasu are more intelligent than most animals, but they don't think the way we do. They just don't take people alive.'

'But this one did take Pebbles alive,' Streams protested.

Ushara shook his head. 'It wouldn't have done if it had been acting naturally. I was trying to work out what kind of stimuli might have induced it to do something like that, and it just didn't make sense, and suddenly I realised I was barking up the wrong tree. The fact is that it _wasn't_ responding to anything that had happened to it. I mean it wasn't acting of its own accord.'

Streams and Shujeema exchanged baffled glances, but Jeerala's eyes widened. 'You think it was under some kind of mind controlling enchantment? An Illusion spell? I know that you can use spells to calm people and make them angry, but I didn't think you could make one refined enough to give an animal specific orders.'

'Generally you can't. Those kinds of spells aren't the ones you'll find sold in markets, or by master mages in the official guilds and colleges.' Ushara stroked his chin. 'They're too dangerous, too unpredictable, and far too easily exploited. But they do exist. Different cultures have practised different forms of mind control for centuries, with different types of magic. I was reading only recently about an ancient Nord magic called the Voice that could bend the minds of people, dragons, even the very earth and stones… but this will be something far more simple. Some ancient outlawed spell that rogue mages got hold of. Probably not powerful enough to work on people, but an animal like a wamasu is fair game.'

'This is all just guesswork.' Streams was frowning. 'You can't know for certain that this wamasu was under mind control.'

Jeerala spun around on her seat to face her. 'But it makes sense, ma, you know it does. When have we ever had trouble with wamasu before? They just don't like to come so near settlements. And there's no reason why one would take Pebbles alive and not hurt Meer. There just isn't, it's obvious there isn't, so Uncle Ushara has to be right.'

'Even if he is, I don't see what we can do about it,' Streams replied. 'And it doesn't change anything.'

To Jeerala's susprise, Shujeema looked up at this. 'Actually, I think it changes a lot.'

She glanced around at the rest of them, coughed self-consciously, and went on. 'For what it's worth, I think Ushara's right. My mother told me about the time she saw a wamasu flay three travellers alive on the road to Helstrom. It showed no mercy. I can't see any reason for this wamasu to act differently. And if it is under mind control, it means that somewhere out in the marsh right now is a very powerful mage. That mage wants Pebbles alive, and while I don't really know much about magic, I do know that if a mage captures someone alive, it's not usually for a very good reason.'

Ushara was nodding. 'She's right, Streams. If some kind of mage is controlling wamasu to approach a settlements and kidnap people… it's bad news for all of us, but especially for Pebbles. And for Rajava, Meer-Lai, Lateesh and Ireethra. They're going to try tracking down this wamasu, and they have no idea what they're really up against.'

Jeerala leaped from her seat. 'We have to warn them.'

'You'll do nothing of the kind!' Swims-In-Streams rose to her feet, her jaw clenched. 'This is all speculation. And if you're right, it's all the more reason for you to stay right here. My husband and my son are already in danger – I'm not watching my daughter be put in danger too.'

'Your daughter is much stronger and braver than you know.' Ushara stood too. 'Streams, please. Let us go after Rajava and the others. Jeerala is a very powerful mage. You don't understand just how powerful, but believe me, she is. She can defend herself if she's attacked, and if that fails, she has an invisibility spell so she can escape. And I will defend her to the last.'

'I don't see why Jeerala has to go at all.'

'Because we have no idea where the wamasu has gone. And you know as well as I do that no one should stray into a part of Black Marsh they don't know alone. I'm going no matter what, and I'll be safer if Jeerala comes with me.'

'And Jeerala? What about her being safe?'

Shujeema, the only one still sitting, tentatively raised her hand. 'Streams? I think we should let them go.'

Streams turned to face her, her mouth open. 'But, Shujeema. If Ushara leaves, we're vulnerable here. And your egg…'

'Will be safe in the hatching pool. Anyway, if a wamasu attacks it, I'm not going to know from here, anyway, am I?' Shujeema put on a slightly forced but still brave smile. 'Besides, we'll be all right. Fall's house has a basement – if we go down there and pull down the ladder, no wamasu could fit in through the trapdoor. We'd be quite safe, and Ushara and Jeerala can go and do what they can to help save Pebbles.'

Looking somewhat stunned, Streams looked between the three of them. 'By the Hist, Jee. I… I can't stand the thought of you being out there in the uncharted marshes.'

'I have a guiding spell,' Jeerala pointed out. 'Clairvoyance. Always shows the way to your objective.'

Ushara chuckled. 'It's best not to use that one if there are pretty women around, I've found.'

'Anyway, we won't get lost.' Jeerala rolled her eyes and lifted her voice to speak over him. 'And Uncle Ushara will take care of me.'

Streams turned to her brother-in-law, her expression pleading. 'You'll keep her safe?'

'Depend upon it.' He dipped his head gravely. 'I love her like my own daughter. And I will die for her if it comes to it.'

And all Jeerala could do was stare at him and wish, yet again, that he had been her father. There was a feeling flooding through her that felt like downing a mug of warm milk. Like a melty comfort, spreading throughout her body.

It had been so long since anyone had told her that they loved her. Swims-In-Streams showed it regularly, Meer-Lai on occasion, even Rajava acted tenderly towards her from time to time. Hadn't he done so not ten minutes ago? And yet hearing it from Ushara was somehow special. Because he was the one she looked up to most, the one whose approval she sought above that of all the others.

 _I can do this,_ she thought. _He believes in me, so I can do it._

She stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around her mother. 'I promise I'll be careful.'

'You have to be,' Swims-In-Streams whispered. 'Your father and your brother are already in so much danger out there. If anything happens to you…'

'They're our lives to risk,' Ushara told her. 'Jeerala is very nearly an adult. She knows what she's choosing here.'

Streams released Jeerala, nodding as she blinked back tears. 'Come back safely. Take care.'

'We have to move fast.' Ushara turned towards the door. 'We need to try to catch up with Rajava, and if we can't find him, we'll have to find the wamasu's trial before it gets disturbed.'

Jeerala hurried after him. 'I'm coming.'

He pushed the door open, and they stepped outside. And just like that, the choice was made, the line was crossed. She'd defied her family, broken the traditions, embraced her magic, followed her uncle's lead over her father's.

She was breaking every rule she'd ever been told to keep. Her best friend had been captured. Her father and brother were in danger, her mother was out of her mind with worry, and her only companion was the uncle she saw maybe once or twice a year.

Everything about this screamed of trouble. Was it wrong, then for her to feel so… thrilled?

It couldn't be. Because this was how it was in all the stories, with a sudden emergence into a larger world. This was her story's beginning. It had to be. She was the heroine.

She liked this feeling. She liked it a lot.

* * *

 **OK, more Argonian lore! So apparently Argonian eggs are placed in 'hatching pools,' at the base of the Hist trees - I assume there's one quite close to Hejal for Shujeema's egg. As for wamasu, I've not actually played Elder Scrolls Online (yet) in which they appear, so I hope I've presented them properly.**

 **Next chapter, Jeerala will be venturing further into Black Marsh, and I'm really looking forward to showing more of this province... thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Time to range further afield into Black Marsh! I had a lot of fun exploring aspects of Argonian lore in this one - most if it comes from the in-game book series, _The Argonian Account._ Other parts come from my imagination. **

**Over to you, Jeerala...**

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

The first thing Ushara did, the moment they were out of the village clearing, was to slide the silver ring from his finger and turn to Jeerala. 'Give me your hand.'

Despite the fact that her best friend was currently either in the jaws of a wamasu or the hands of a dark mage, Jeerala had it in her to grin. 'Give you my hand? I don't think dad would give permission for you to marry your own niece.'

Ushara laughed. 'Not in _that_ sense of the phrase.' He reached out, taking hold of her left hand and lifting it up. 'This ring will increase your reserves of magicka. You need it much more than I do, if we get into a fight.'

'Do you think that's likely?' Jeerala asked, watching as he carefully pushed the ring onto her thumb – the only finger wide enough to hold it in place.

'I'm afraid I think I do. Let's hope it's with a wamasu, rather than another mage.'

Jeerala sniffed. 'I think I'd prefer the mage. Fewer spikes, less armour.'

'But more intelligence. Much more.' Ushara ducked under an overhanging branch. 'A wamasu uses lightning attacks, to be sure, but it can't conjure a ward to block your spells, nor can it predict your actions or set a trap. Besides, if it comes to a fight, I'd prefer for you to have to kill a beast rather than a person.'

'I could kill a person. If I had to.'

'I'm sure you could, if they drove you to it. But that doesn't mean it's a nice feeling, watching a fellow sapient being die.'

'I didn't mean I'd enjoy it.' Jeerala pressed her lips together. 'I mean… there's so much in this world. And sure, there's loads of different afterlives and they're all pretty special, but it's cruel to stop someone from having a chance to explore life in this world. If you kill someone, you cut their time short.'

Ushara regarded her for a moment, then smiles and chuckled. 'And Rajava wants a girl who thinks like that to live out her days hauling nets.'

Something told Jeerala that he wasn't expecting an answer to this statement, so she hurried a little way ahead of him, so that she could see the fishing streams ahead of them, snaking through the foliage. 'The wamasu must have attacked somewhere around here. Meer-Lai said he and Pebbles were on their way back when it happened.'

She turned in a circle, and instantly the evidence jumped out at her - flattened ferns, torn-up ground, a low-hanging leaf with a few red specks of what she guessed was her brother's blood clinging to its surface. With her eyes, she followed the trail of flattened plants away from the path and into the undergrowth. It led away from Hejal, in the opposite direction to Fernglade, towards the parts of the marsh where Jeerala had never been and had never expected to go.

'The others came this way, look.' Ushara crouched at the foot of a tree, his face lowered close to the mud. 'Bootprints. They started tracking the wamasu.'

'Couldn't we just use a Clairvoyance spell? To work out where it's gone, I mean.'

'I don't think it would work. We have two conflicting goals right now – find Pebbles, and find Rajava and the others. Look.' Ushara sent the spell weaving out into the tangle of foliage ahead of them. The blue line flickered into being, then abruptly jolted some distance to the left. Then it went back to the right, and back again, flickering so fast between them that Jeerala couldn't make out either path it was trying to show.

'Clairvoyance is a tricky one,' Ushara explained. 'It's perfect if you're lost in an old ruin and you want to find your way, but if you're looking for several things at once… If I were better at Illusion, I might be able to focus it, but I've always been one for Destruction and Conjuration. Illusion classes as the College always sent me to sleep a bit. Not that Master Neloren was a bad teacher, it's just not my favourite branch of magic.'

'Fine, then we can do it the old fashioned way, right?' Jeerala shrugged. 'We can still track them.'

'We can indeed.'

'Then let's get after them.' Jeerala stood back to let him take the lead; she knew he had far more experience in tracking, after his years spent in the wild. Ushara followed the trail in bursts of speed, hurrying between claw-imprints in the earth and broken plant stems, stopping to examine them and locate the next, then rushing on. Jeerala kept close behind him, and occasionally pride would flare inside her when she spotted the next clue before her uncle. Whenever she did, he would stop to give her a smile or a quick pat on the shoulder before moving forward. Even in circumstances like this, Jeerala thought, it was wonderful to be around someone who appreciated her.

After a while, the time it took for Ushara to spot the next piece of evidence of the others' passing dwindled to almost nothing. He seemed to be making only cursory glances around before heading on. And at last, he gestured for them both to stop. 'Have you noticed anything odd, Jee?'

'Apart from the fact that we're tracking a mage-controlled lightning-spewing beast, not really.'

Ushara gestured behind them, at the path they had followed. 'Doesn't something about the direction we've been travelling in strike you as strange?'

Jeerala frowned, staring back the way they had come, and the answer burst inside her mind with a flash of alarm. 'It's a straight line. The wamasu's not weaving from side to side or anything, it's just charging straight ahead. I mean, it climbed over that big fallen tree back there, and it should be smart enough to see that going around would be easier.'

'Exactly. Not normal animal behaviour, like I said.' Ushara moved off again, following the trail's trajectory. 'If we needed conformation that there's mind control at work here, we have it now.'

Another minute of tramping through the mud; then Ushara drew to a sharp stop. 'It's changed direction. Look.' He gestured to a swathe of trampled ferns. 'It's veering off to the right.'

'So the mage ordered him to take a different route?'

'Possibly. But I'm not sure such a spell would be that subtle. I'd have thought the mage would just have… recalled the wamasu. And it seemed to be heading in a straight line, to wherever the mage wanted it to go.' Ushara bent his head down for a moment, clearly thinking hard, then held up one hand. 'Stay right there, Jee. Don't move, and shout if anything happens. I'm just going to follow this new trail a little way, I don't think I'll even go out of sight.'

Jeerala nodded. She trusted Ushara not to leave her, and besides, she could defend herself if the worst came to the worst. She backed up against a tree trunk, to make certain that nothing could ambush her from behind, and conjured a lightning bolt spell into each hand. She knew from experience that Black Marsh was packed with creatures eager to take a bite out of you – only Argonians, really, would be able to survive travelling through this area. A human, elf or Khajiit would be bitten to pieces by the fleshflies, if they didn't drown in a hidden pool or get ripped to shreds by hackwings, who had much more trouble tearing through the thick scales of her species than through the thin skin of the other races. Voriplasm, too, could kill anyone who travelled by the waterways without enough knowledge of what to look out for. And Swamp Leviathans. Thrilling as they were to see if you caught a glimpse of one while on board your raft, they could also swallow you whole. They were best avoided.

This part of the marsh was relatively dry – for a swamp. Bogs and ponds could be expected every ten metres or so, rather than on every other stride, and there was a fair distance between Hejal's fishing stream and the next large river. She and Ushara weren't having too much difficulty on their journey so far, and the marsh's most dangerous creatures were the water-dwelling ones, which would be fewer around here. Still, it was best to be wary. So she kept her spells charged and ready while Ushara headed away.

Her uncle kept his word – he didn't head far enough into the trees and vines and tangled bushes for her to lose sight of his orange robes. She saw him bend close to the ground - examining the wamasu's trail, she guessed - turn in a circle, sniff the bark of a tree, and nod to himself. Then he headed back towards her, batting a few insects out of his way.

'I just had a closer look at the sign,' he said. 'In tracking terms, _sign_ is the word for the clues we've been following – footprints, broken plants, that kind of thing. And the wamasu's acting naturally again. It's moving from side to side, going around obstacles rather than over them, scratching at trees. Wherever it is now, it's no longer under the spell.' He clasped his hands together. 'Rajava and the others are still following it. I found the imprints of their boots. But the thing is, once the enchantment on the wamasu broke, it would have no reason to keep carrying Pebbles. And we've not seen any blood, no signs of a struggle that would indicate it killed him.'

Though his words made Jeerala shudder, she felt a surge of admiration towards her uncle for not trying to coat the truth in moonsugar. He wasn't afraid to say _blood_ or _kill._ He gave her the facts. She knew that her best friend's life was in peril, and it would do neither of them any good to dodge around that.

'So.' Jeerala frowned. 'The mage released the wamasu, but when the spell wore off, it wouldn't keep him alive, but there's no sign that he was killed… so the mage must have met up with it here, taken Pebbles, and then let the wamasu go.'

'That's exactly what I was thinking. You're as smart as I am.' Ushara grinned at her. 'So now what we need to do is to try and work out which direction the mage went in. I expect he'd have had to make the wamasu put Pebbles down, so… try to look for anywhere where a large area of plants might have been flattened, or for an imprint in the mud large enough to have been made by a boy as big as Pebbles being laid on the earth. Failing that, look for boot prints that don't look like those of anyone in the village.'

This was no easy task. Rajava's team had left plenty of marks in the mud, and it was hard enough telling those apart. _I'm not a hunter,_ Jeerala thought irritably, as she crouched on her hands and knees to examine a patch of torn-up soil. _I catch fish badly and I play around with spells. Whichever one of the Divines had the idea to make me the hero of this story, they really, really messed up._

She glanced at her uncle. _Actually, he's the hero. He's the one with the survival skills and the fighting power, the one who knows what he's doing. I'm his sidekick._

The thought was surprisingly pleasing. It put less pressure on her, for a start. And the sidekicks were often more interesting than the heroes. No, there was no reason to be ashamed of being the sidekick.

'I've got something.' Ushara was bending close to a thorn bush. 'Come and take a look at this, Jee.'

Wading through ferns to join him, Jeerala peered at the thin branch he held between two fingers. 'A stick?'

'No, this, here. Caught on the thorn.'

She squatted beside him, leaned in close, and realised what he was trying to show her. 'They look like a couple of threads.'

'That's right.' Ushara plucked the dark blue strands from the thorn and held them up to what little light penetrated through the branches above them. 'Someone came past here, and the thorn caught on their clothes. Pebbles wasn't wearing anything of this colour, was he?'

Jeerala shook her head. 'No, he was… he was wearing green and brown.' She glanced at her own apparel – a pale cream tunic and brown sleeveless jacket, and dark grey breeches. There was no way that these threads could have come from her clothes, and nor could they have come from Ushara's. She closed her eyes and focused hard, trying to remember what Rajava, Lateesh, Ireethra and Meer-Lai had worn. Bright colours like blue were rare in Hejal – the dyes were too expensive. Lateesh had a blue dress, but she hadn't been wearing it today.

'Dad and the others weren't wearing blue either,' she murmured. 'So this wasn't left by any of us.'

'I think, Jee,' Ushara said slowly, twiddling the threads around between his fingertips, 'that we have a clue here left behind by our friend the mage.'

'Considerate of him.'

'Careless of him. But a lot of mages don't pay much attention to stealth.' Ushara squinted at the ground, and gave a satisfied grunt. 'See here? Footprints. And this is very intriguing indeed. More than one pair.'

'You mean, more than one mage?' Jeerala gulped – the only thing that could be worse with dealing with an insane kidnapping magic-wielder would be dealing with two.

Ushara shook his head. 'Look. I think this is the mage – you see how thin the feet are? This isn't an Argonian we're dealing with here, Jee. It's one of the other races, most likely an elf or a human, possibly one of the larger, plantigrade, bipedal Khajiit forms, a Cathay maybe. But that's very unlikely, Khajiit barely ever come to Black Marsh.'

'I thought the other races couldn't survive here. Not without a lot of help.'

'Remember that this is a powerful mage we're dealing with. Besides, he does have help. These prints here were made by an Argonian, walking barefoot.' Ushara gestured to the indentations the clawed toes had made in the ground. 'An adult male, I'd guess. Probably acting as guide for the mage.'

'That's… peculiar.' Jeerala scratched the base of her horns. 'Why'd an Argonian want to help a human or elf or Khajiit kidnap other Argonians? I mean, I know it's not as black and white as 'Argonians are good, outsiders are bad,' but we usually stick together, right? At least here in Black Marsh.'

Ushara shrugged. 'Who can say? Maybe he's being paid well, maybe he's being threatened. Greed and fear can motivate people to do a great many things they normally wouldn't choose to.' He straightened up. 'It seems pretty clear to me what happened. The mage realised his wamasu was being followed. He came here with his Argonian guide and let the wamasu go. Then he and the guide carried Pebbles away.'

'Then they should be easier to follow, right? I mean, if they're carrying someone, they'll be slower and clumsier.'

'Let's hope so.' Ushara glanced back towards the wamasu's trail. 'There's just one more thing. Rajava and the others kept following the wamasu. I found the marks of their boots back there.'

'So they're going the wrong way?'

'Yes. They didn't catch on to the path the wamasu was taking, the straight-line thing, and they didn't see anything odd when it changed direction. They'd have no reason to think it would drop Pebbles at any point. They'll head back to its lair.' Ushara moved over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. 'Jee, we're going to have to make a choice. Your father, your brother, Lateesh and Ireethra are going to keep tracking that wamasu. It could lead them into its den and they'll fight it, for no good reason. They could be killed.' He breathed in deeply. 'We have to decide whether we're going to hurry after them and warn them, or keep looking for Pebbles.'

Jeerala swallowed, suddenly feeling very cold and very, very young. 'What do you think?'

'What do _you_ think?' Ushara crouched a little so that their heads were on a level. 'The people whose lives are at stake here are closer to you than they are to me.'

Biting her lip, Jeerala shook her head slightly. 'We don't know what the mage is planning with Pebbles,' she murmured, voicing her thoughts out loud. 'He might not kill him. But the wamasu will try to kill Pa and Meer and the others if they find it.' She hesitated. 'But they've got weapons. They can defend themselves. Pebbles… Pebbles can't. If we don't warn Pa, Meer, Lateesh and Ireethra, they might get killed, but they might not. If the mage decides to kill Pebbles, he'll definitely get killed. He's not got anyone to help him, except us. I think… I think we she could go after the mage.'

Ushara nodded slowly. 'I'm glad you think that, Jee, because it's what I was thinking too, and it means I'm more likely to be right about it. Not that there really is a right or wrong in a situation like this. Either choice you make could lead to people getting hurt.'

Jeerala considered this for a moment, then turned to face the way the mage seemed to be heading. 'Well, let's get moving quickly so Pebbles doesn't have a chance to get hurt.'

Chuckling, Ushara moved past her to take the lead. 'Couldn't have put it better myself.'

It became apparent quickly that Jeerala had been right – the mage and his companion were moving in a somewhat cumbersome manner, leaving behind a considerable and helpful amount of evidence to mark their passing. 'They're carrying Pebbles between them, see?' Ushara said, pointing to the latest group of footprints. (Jeerala _didn't_ see, but she was willing to take his word for it.) 'And now they think they've shaken off their pursuers, they're not being careful. A wamasu can move with surprising stealth. We mortals aren't so good at that, unless we really focus on it. Except for Khajiit, of course, they can move almost silently, leaving behind hardly any trace. So I shouldn't really have even considered the possibility of our mysterious kidnapper being a Khajiit, since whoever it was left behind – ah.'

He stopped abruptly, so much so that Jeerala walked into him and smacked her snout against his back. Backing away with a muffled apology, she peered past him and saw what he had seen – a trail of prints in the mud, leading to the banks of a river.

'They must have a boat or a raft.' Ushara's soldiers sagged. 'We'll never find them now. We've no way to know which way they headed.'

'Hold on.' Jeerala tugged at his sleeve. 'You said earlier that we couldn't use Clairvoyance to trace him, because we had two objectives at once in our heads – finding Pebbles, and finding Pa. But back there, we decided to stop looking for Pa and focus just on Pebbles. Now we've done that, shouldn't our brains have it clear enough for Clairvoyance to show us which way down the river they went?'

Ushara turned to her, his eyes wide. 'Jeerala of Hejal, has anyone ever told you that you're a genius?'

'They have now.'

Ushara gave her a nudge. 'This is why you're going to be a far better adventurer than I could ever be. You've always got an idea. You think of things other people wouldn't.' He lifted his hand and sent the translucent blue pathway stretching out ahead of them. While it wavered and flickered a little, the Clairvoyance spell was far stronger and more solid this time, firmly pointing upstream.

'There we are, then.' Ushara nodded and set off, Jeerala hurrying a pace behind him. 'And we're in luck – going against the water will mean they'll be just a little bit slower. We've got a better chance of catching up to them on foot.'

Jeerala didn't bother asking if they could swim. Much as she loved the water, she had no desire to jump into a strange river, especially one as murky as this. Certain pools and streams around Hejal were safe to swim in – this one almost certainly wouldn't be.

'You honestly think Pa will ever let me actually be an adventurer?' she asked, quickening her pace to keep up with her uncle.

He shrugged. 'Maybe it doesn't matter whether or not he'd let you.'

'It does matter. He's my father.'

'I didn't ask his permission to leave when I went. Honestly, Jee, if you want to go, then just pack your bags and go. He wouldn't be able to stop you.'

'But it would be dangerous travelling alone… besides, I wouldn't want to leave without saying goodbye.'

Ushara shook his head. 'I wasn't suggesting you just sneak off in the dead of night. But if you looked Rajava in the eye and said you were going, there would honestly be nothing he could do. Don't hold back because you think he'd disapprove.'

'I don't think he'd disapprove, I know he would! I do want to leave, I'm sick of living in Hejal and I want to do more with my life and work the scales off my fingers catching fish. But I don't want to leave my family behind if we're angry with each other. What if something happened to me out there and I never came back and they had to spent the rest of their lives knowing the last things they said to me were –' She swallowed and looked down at the waterlogged earth. 'I don't want to hurt them. I mean, they drive me crazy, but I still love them.'

'And that's very admirable. But if they're worthy of you caring so much about you, they'll let you go without arguing.'

Jeerala tilted her head to the side. 'Why do you and Pa get on so badly? I mean, he's your brother, but whenever you're around he's just so… cantankerous.'

'He thinks I'm a bad influence. He thinks I abandoned Hejal too soon after our father died. He thinks I meddle with dark powers.' He sighed. 'A great many Dunmer are spellcasters, and your father, like a lot of Argonians, has a poor opinion of the Dunmer and everything to do with them.'

'Do you?'

'Of course not. There were quite a few Dunmer at the College. The Archmage is one, for the Hist's sake. Savos Aren. A wonderful man, one of the wisest I've ever known. And we wouldn't have the Clairvoyance spell to help us if Master Neloren hadn't taught it to me, and he's a Dunmer too. But most people who live in this marsh have never actually met a Dunmer. Sure, their grandfathers might have slaughtered a few in the Invasion, though that hardly counts.'

Jeerala nodded slowly; reading about the Invasion of Morrowind was one of the few parts of history that made her feel uncomfortable – or, worse, guilty. 'But that was almost two hundred years ago now. Does Pa really dislike magic just because his ancestors might have been enslaved by people who used it?'

'I never said it was logical, Jee. Your father tries his best to be a traditional Argonian. I'm not a traditional Argonian.'

'It's a good thing you're not, or we'd never be able to find Pebbles. It's good to be contradistinctive.'

Ushara let out a loud snort. 'You and your big words.'

'You shouldn't have given me that dictionary.'

'Probably not. How's your common tongue coming along, by the way?'

Jeerala focused hard, switching her native Jel for the language spoken by most outside Black Marsh. She'd been teaching it to herself through books for the last ten years; this, at least, her father encouraged, since it made her useful to have around in the markets, if they ever needed to trade with a non-Jel speaker. 'Pretty well, I think. I have a little trouble coming up with good words.'

'You're aware that language is for communication, not for confusing people?'

'It's not my fault if no one else can be bothered to learn any interesting words. And I do try to –'

Ushara threw up a hand. 'Hold on,' he said, drawing to a halt. 'What do we have here?'

Jeerala followed his gaze, and her breath caught in her throat.

Ahead of them, the trees thinned, and the ground sloped away. Black Marsh was largely flat, but here and there one could find the odd hill, and here was one now. She and Ushara stood at its top. The river they followed continued a little way along the crest of the hill, then veered to the side and meandered down the slope for some distance before reaching a jutting lip of rock and cascading down over it. Into the largest stretch of water Jeerala had ever seen.

 _Lake_ was one of those words that, to Jeerala, had a definition, but no meaning. It was a large pool, she knew that much, but she had underestimated just how vast 'large' was in this context. The water almost touched the horizon, and from end to end, it came close to filling her field of vision. This was the sort of water that, she knew, hid slaughterfish and Swamp Leviathans and nameless, mindless things from the deep. This lake had existed longer than she ever would if she became a talented enough mage to multiply her span of years by ten. It was a tiny fragment out that huge outside world she had always been kept away from, and the beauty of it made her eyes prick with tears.

And in the centre of the lake, there stood a temple.

She'd seen pictures in her books before, pictures of Nordic fortresses, Imperial chapels, elven towers. But of course a picture could not do justice to reality. And there was something incredible about seeing something that her own people had made, in long-ago times, for whatever reason. Argonians had made this. The same race that spent half their lives ankle-deep in mud and lived in a swamp full of fleshflies had also carved out the stone blocks to make… _this._

The centre looked like a pyramid, one of the ones whose sides looked like a staircase for a giant. Around this central pyramid was a tall, thick wall; Jeerala could see that there were doorways built into it, passages running inside it. At intervals along the wall were towers, their walls carved with faces. They seemed to be stylised Argonian heads, the teeth bared, the eyes fierce. Even with this long distance between her and them, Jeerala could tell that they had been damaged. Huge chunks of the faces had been torn away – and yet the rest of the temple seemed to be more or less solid. Here and there, parts of the outer wall had crumbled, and the entire thing was swathed in vines, but it didn't seem to be falling down.

'I know this place,' Ushara murmured, raising a hand to his brow – on the brow of the hill, with no trees over them, the sunlight was suddenly dazzling. 'Xinio'al. I think it was a holy building, once – one of the largest Hist trees ever known grew in the courtyard. Mothers who didn't feel they could care for their unhatched children would place their eggs in the hatching pool at its roots. The temple priests would raise them once they hatched, and teach them how to be close to the Hist.'

'So how come it's a ruin now?'

'The tree was killed, either by the weather or disease or enemies of the Argonians. The place had been built as a shrine to the Hist – without the great tree there, it seemed pointless. So the priests left, and Xinio'al was abandoned.'

'Did you know it was near Hejal?'

'Oh, yes, it's marked on all the maps of this area. I've been there before. There's not much there except stones and vines, but I found a few artefacts – broken pots, statues, that kind of thing.' He sighed. 'No one goes to Xinio'al except curious adventurers. It'd be the perfect place for a mage to carry out experiments, kidnappings… and not just because it's abandoned.' He dug into his bag, pulling out a scroll of parchment, which, when he unfolded it, was revealed to be a map. 'I should have thought of Xinio'al earlier. Look – here's Hejal, that little dot there. There's Fernglade. And here's Xinio'al.'

He indicated a few black ink dots on the map. Jeerala squinted at it, nodding slowly as she realised what her uncle was driving at. Xinio'al was roughly equidistant from a number of small villages – Hejal was one, and there were others whose names she knew. Acloal. Shahjun. Xhu'atl. Fishing settlements, mostly, their populations tiny, far from any large towns. The kinds of places from which people could go missing, and no one would notice. If those villages reported it, no one would care.

'You think this mage has been taking other people, too? That it's not just Pebbles?'

'It seems likely. Remember those Argonian footprints we found? Most likely that's someone else who's been captured, and he's being forced to help this mage get around in the marsh.'

'Yeah…' Jeerala stared at the vast grey structure lying ahead of them. 'Then it's even more important that we stop the mage, because otherwise he might try again, and then more people will get taken away.'

'Rightly said.' Ushara folded up the map. 'We'd best get moving. Once we're a little closer to Xinio'al, we can scout out the situation and make a real plan.'

They followed the river down the slope, soon coming to the place where the raft their quarry had clearly used to travel along the river was moored to a tree. Here, a narrow path led down the side of the waterfall, down to the shore of the lake. Ushara pulled Jeerala behind the wide trunk of a fallen tree and gestured for her to keep still. 'The first thing we need to do is to work out how to cross the lake.'

'It can't be too dangerous,' Jeerala said, glancing over the trunk at the brown swathe of water. 'Or the mage wouldn't risk making his camp there.'

Ushara sighed heavily. 'I think there must be a bridge of some kind leading to the temple. We could try crossing it while invisible, but… a lake of that size? It'd have to have one darn long bridge. We'd come back into view before we got halfway. And you can't hide the casting light. We'd be seen.' He shook his head, looking anguished. 'We'll have to swim the lake.'

'But… what if there are things in the water?'

She knew he would understand what she meant by _things._ Voriplasm. Slaughterfish. Leviathans. The former two would be less common in a lake of this size, but the latter… this was exactly the place she'd expect to find them.

'We don't have many options. Like you said, it would be unlikely for the mage to live comfortable here if there were Swamp Leviathans in the water; they'd smash right through a bridge. If we approach any other way, we'll be seen.' Ushara turned to face her. 'Jee, if you don't want to do this, I'll take you back.'

'Not a chance.' Jeerala shook her head firmly. 'I'm rescuing Pebbles. Even if I have to swim across a creepy lake to do it.'

Ushara smiled. 'Looks like you're the brains and the bravery in this outfit. Let's get ready. We'd best take off our shoes, to make swimming easier, and turn out anything we're carrying that the water would damage.'

He dropped his backpack onto the earth, rootling through it quickly to discard anything the water would damage – books, scrolls, the map. Jeerala had nothing with her other than her clothes, her necklace, his ring, and her horn decorations. She untied a couple of the best ribbons from her horns – she didn't want the water to damage them – and slid off a few charms and rings that might come loose underwater. She tugged off her boots, laid them onto the earth beside Ushara's discarded items, and nodded. 'Ready to go.'

Her uncle flicked an Invisibility spell into being in his palm. 'Best move quickly. I hope you've been practising your Illusion.'

Jeerala closed her eyes and focused hard; like Ushara, she'd never found Illusion quite as easy as Destruction and Conjuration. She knew better than to even try casting the spell with both hands; it would drain her magicka too much. One-handed casting would hopefully conceal her from the sight of anyone watching from Xinio'al just as well. It took her a few attempts to send the spell's effects flowing over her body, but on the fourth try, she was given the satisfaction of being able to watch her clothes and scales ripple and vanish from view.

'Let's move,' said Ushara's disembodied voice, and she followed his footprints towards the shore.

It was rare for Argonians, made for swimming though they were, to travel long distances through water – it just wasn't safe. Generally, they would go over land, or in boats, or even inside the stomachs of rootworms. The simple-minded, fragile-skinned creatures moved by slithering through the tree-roots beneath the swamp. They swallowed their prey whole and took so long to digest it that one could sit quite comfortably inside them as the rootworm swam on, effectively hitching a ride in the worm's stomach. Even non-Argonians could do it, since their insides were watertight. And because their skin was translucent, you could even watch the world outside for signs that you had reached your destination. Once that happened, you could quite simply push up through the worm's skin – killing it, unfortunately, but emerging into the outside world.

Jeerala had travelled by rootworm before, when the family had needed to make a small delivery to Fernglade but the raft had been damaged. It had been a rather pleasant journey. Rootworms, unfortunately, didn't live in open stretches of water. It would have been nice to use them to cross the lake. As it was, they would have to swim, and while they were in no danger of drowning, thanks to their gills, it would be a cold and tiring journey. Her father had, when she'd been a child, told her warning tales of foolish young Argonians who tried to swim too far and who passed out from the exhaustion, sank to the bottom, and who starved in the depths before they found their way to the surface. She was pretty confident that Ushara wouldn't let that happen to her, and besides, there was no reason for Clairvoyance not to work underwater. Still, swimming the lake was a daunting prospect.

Plus… the thought of Swamp Leviathans was hard to banish from her head.

They waded into the lake until the water was up to Ushara's waist and Jeerala's shoulders. 'Remember, if anything attacks us, use ice spikes and only ice spikes,' he told her. 'Lightning and fire spells won't help you underwater, for obvious reasons, and a slow spell like frostbite will be slowed down by water resistance. Ice spikes, if fired with enough force, can move quickly enough to pack a punch. I'll keep casting Detect Life spells so we can avoid anything that looks like it might be big and toothy.'

'Sounds good to me.' Jeerala curled her toes, sinking her claws into the lake bed; she knew it was odd, but she liked the feeling of the cool mud against her feet. 'Let's do this.'

Ushara dipped his head and dived down below the water. With a last glance at the distant temple, Jeerala followed.

There wasn't much light, even though they kept close to the surface. Ushara swam close to her side, casting a spell every half minute or so. Jeerala focused on staying beside him, knowing how easy it would be to get lost if he went out of her site. When she'd travelled by rootworm to Fernglade, she'd just needed to sit back and let the worm move for her. She'd been able to watch the fish flash by, examine the different types of river weed. Another family had passed by in worms of their own, and the children had returned Jeerala's cheery wave. This time, though, her entire attention had to be focused on steering. Which was a shame, really. There could have been anything hidden under the water in a lake like this.

She kept going, using her tail as a rudder and her limbs as oars. At one point, Ushara grasped her arm and tugged her firmly in a different direction to the one they'd been heading in. After a while, he pulled her back around and kept going. She guessed that his Detect Life spell had shown him something they'd needed to avoid, and she was glad she couldn't ask him what it had been. She had a feeling she didn't want to know.

Every few minutes, he gestured for them to stop and rest. While it was a relief to be given a break, it meant that she had nothing to do except hang a little way below the surface and wonder if anything hungry had seen them. Swimming was better; it meant she was distracted.

At last, Ushara gestured for them both to stop, and this time, he smiled at her in a way that told her they were almost at the end of their journey. With no small amount of relief, she slowed, allowing the drifting a little way forwards through the water and stopping beside Ushara. He was floating a short distance from her, his eyes turned towards the surface. Gesturing for her to stay put, he swam upwards; Jeerala saw ripples flash outwards across the thin skin that divided water and sky as he pushed the top of his head – just his horns and eyes – out into the air. He only remained there for a moment before diving back down to join her.

Like all Argonians, their gills allowed them to breathe freely within the lake, but naturally what they could not do was speak. Ushara sketched the outline of a temple in the water with one hand, then gestured to the pair of them, and held his hands a short distance apart from each other. Jeerala nodded to show that she had understood – _we're very close to the temple._ Her uncle swam closer to her, tapped her head, and gestured towards the blackness below them. _Keep your head down._ Again, Jeerala nodded. He beckoned to her, and kicked out in what Jeerala guessed was the direction of the bank.

Soon, she saw the gloom beneath her fade to brown, and her legs brushed against plants. She kept her eye on Ushara as he went ahead of her, occasionally lifting his head above the surface. At last, he flipped his body vertical and put his feet down, standing upright so that he emerged from the water down to his shoulders. Jeerala copied him, spitting out pondweed as her head broke into the air.

Ushara had been right – the temple of Xinio'al was only a short way away, its outer wall separated from them by a small slope covered in trees and ferns. There was no one in sight, but when Ushara lifted his hands and cast what Jeerala guessed was a Detect Life spell, his jaw tightened and he quickly ducked behind the nearest bank of plants.

'This is it, all right,' he whispered. 'The temple's covered in life signs. There's a whole bunch of them grouped together near the wall on one end, and others walking around.'

'Do you think we can get in without being seen?'

'If we use our spells right, definitely. I'd guess there are twenty people in there, and there are none close to us. If we're careful, we can climb up onto that tower, take a look at the situation, and hatch a plan.'

He moved closer to her, resting his hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes. 'I need you to make me a promise. We could be facing anything in there, and most likely, it'll be dangerous. Do you promise me that if I tell you to run, you'll run?'

Jeerala forced a grin. 'What, right across the lake?'

'Jee.' The sigh in his voice told her that he wanted her to be serious. 'I'm responsible for your safety. We're going to try to help Pebbles in any way we can, but if it looks like you're in danger and there's no way out for me, I might have to ask you to leave me and save yourself. Swim across the lake – it'll take a long time, but you'll make it if you conserve your energy – and head straight back home. Promise me that if I ask you to do that, you will. I can't go any further in good conscience if I don't know that you'll do it.'

Breathing in deeply, Jeerala considered his request. She understood why he was asking it. He cared about her. He didn't want her to get hurt. She had a feeling that if she'd been the one in charge, she'd ask the same thing of him. But what if he asked that of her, and he was wrong? What if there was a way out, one he hadn't seen?'

'I promise,' she said slowly, 'that if you tell me to run away, I'll run away, _if_ it looks like there's nothing clever I could do to get us both out of whatever mess we've got into.'

He stared at her for a moment, then grinned, shaking his head. 'Great Hist, you're growing into me.'

'Good.' Jeerala rubbed her hands together. 'So, are we going to get moving?'

Ushara gave a single, firm nod. 'We are, if you're ready.'

'I am.'

'Come on, then.' Ushara squeezed her shoulders briefly, then released his grip. 'Let's go and rescue your friend.'

* * *

 **Sorry that this was just one long chapter of travelling, but I couldn't resist the urge to explore Black Marsh a little. Yes, rootworms are an actual thing - read _The Argonian Account._ Not a bad method of transport, huh? I was tempted to create an open-water subspecies so that Jeerala and Ushara could use them to cross the lake, but I didn't want to bend the lore.**

 **Xinio'al, and the other locations mentioned in this chapter, were all created by me. Making Argonian place names is dead fun.**

 **Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Another chapter which turned out longer than I would have liked, requiring me to split it in half... again. You never know, some day I might end up writing something that turns out the expected length...**

* * *

CHAPTER FOUR

Even though she was under the effects of both Invisibility and Muffle spells, Jeerala had an odd feeling that her heart had climbed up her neck and lodged itself somewhere around her throat as she followed Ushara into the outer wall of Xinio'al. It seemed completely inevitable that at some point, someone would spot them – either the mage himself of one of his Argonian guides - and then they'd have an insane kidnapping spellcaster after their blood. But Ushara (as far as she could tell) pressed on through the passageway inside the walls without hesitation or even a glance over his shoulder, so all Jeerala could do was to draw in a deep breath and follow him – or rather, follow the wet splashes his feet made on the stone floor, since he was both invisible and inaudible.

The hallway was wide, made entirely of grey stone, and here and there the walls were decorated with smaller versions of the same kinds of stylised carving that Jeerala had seen on the outside. Here and there, they seemed to lapse into storytelling rather than simple decoration – pictures of battles, of Argonians kneeling before Hist trees, or battling marshland creatures. It was dangerously tempting to stop and examine them, but there was no time, Jeerala knew that.

After some minutes of eerily silent trekking through the corridor, Ushara started to fade back into view, his footsteps regaining their sound. Right on cue, the stairway to the tower became visible ahead of them, and Ushara beckoned Jeerala forwards. 'Let's get up there. Quickly.'

He recast the spells and vanished again. Jeerala copied him and made her way towards the foot of the stairway, being careful not to move too fast. It would be easy to run into him.

The tower was about ten times the height of Jeerala's home in Hejal, and her legs were aching by the time she reached the top. A trapdoor, the planks that made it smothered in moss, was built into the ceiling; though she couldn't see her uncle, Jeerala was able to watch the trapdoor open at his push – only to split apart and fall in a shower of wood pieces. A soft yelp came from Ushara, but after a moment, his voice rang out close by her. 'I'm all right. Any splinters?'

'None,' Jeerala assured him.

'Good. Up we go, then.'

She waited for some time, so that she knew she wouldn't smack his tail with her head as she climbed up, then scrambled through the opening. After the dully lit interiors of the passageway and the stairs, the outside air was a relief; the sun was too bright for her eyes to make out anything for a few moments, but at last, the world swam into view. She laid herself down flat on the tower roof, knowing that when her invisibility spell expired, this would make her less likely to be seen in the few moments before she cast it again, and scrabbled forwards towards the edge.

'We've got a good view from here,' Ushara murmured. 'Let's see what we can make out.'

The answer, Jeerala soon saw, was most of Xinio'al – crucially, the central pyramid and the courtyard surrounding it. The first thing she noticed was that the pyramid was not a solid mass. The tower roof was on a level with that of the highest step of the pyramid, and so she could just about make out the square-shaped hole that ran, it seemed, right the way through it. Frowning, Jeerala forced herself to take on the mindset of an ancient priest, building this temple out here to honour a Hist tree. Why build a hole?

'I wonder if they built the temple _around_ the tree?' she whispered.

'I always thought it was in the courtyard,' Ushara muttered back. 'But you could be right – I never did work out why they made a hole in the temple. You'd think they'd get wet in the rain. A Hist tree would fit right in there.'

'It must have been huge.'

'Must have. But we're getting distracted. Let's not forget why we came here.'

Feeling sheepish, Jeerala nodded. He was right; she'd completely forgotten about Pebbles and the mage for a moment. She glanced down at the courtyard, and instantly wished she hadn't. It suddenly occurred to her that she was right at the edge of the roof of an extremely tall tower, and that she couldn't even see her own body. And she was one of the clumsiest Argonians known to mortalkind. _By the Hist, it would be so easy to fall…_

She swallowed, and clenched her hands into fists. _I'm not going to fall. This is for Pebbles. He needs me to not fall._

Summoning up all her nerve, she looked down into the courtyard, and this time, she kept her gaze there. And again, she wished she hadn't looked, but this time, the cause of her fear was not the drop.

'That,' Ushara said softly, 'could be problematic.'

They had been wrong. There was not a mage kidnapping Argonian villagers. There were at least ten.

It was easy to tell that they were mages, even from this height. The dark blue threads they had found earlier had clearly come from the robes these people wore. And even if their clothes had not marked them out, their species would have. For the first time, Jeerala found herself looking at people who did not have long snouts, thick rudderlike tails and scaled bodies. Oh, her knowledge of the common tongue had proven useful in the marketplace, but she had only ever used it to communicate with Argonians who had grown up outside Black Marsh. Never had she actually spoken to, or even seen, a human, elf or Khajiit. The Argonian had people had been the only people in the world to her, until now.

Transfixed, she stared at their flattened faces, at the backs of their robes which did not need holes cut in them to accommodate tails, at their smooth skin. These were elves, they had to be – their ears (ears that protruded from their heads!) were thin and pointed. And their skin was grey, grey like the ashes of an old fire. Dunmer, then, which meant they must have red eyes, too. Though of course it was impossible to see from this height.

'Dunmer,' Jeerala breathed, her eyes stretching wide. 'Real, live Dunmer.'

Ushara let out a low hiss. 'I thought so. They've got the innate magical talent, and the reason to want to hurt Argonians.'

'There's so many of them.' Jeerala gave a tiny shake of her head. 'I… how do we find Pebbles with so many of them about?'

'They wouldn't bother capturing Pebbles if they didn't have a use for him. We just need to find out what that use is and where they're keeping him in preparation for it.'

'What kind of thing do you think they might be after?'

'Subjects for experiments. Thralls. Whatever it is, it won't be good, and you and I have to stop it.'

'Uncle Ushara, there's… there's so many of them.' Jeerala swallowed hard. 'Finding Pebbles is one thing, but when you say _stop it,_ do you mean kill the mages?'

There was a short silence.

'I'm not saying they have to die, Jee. And we definitely can't decide on something as huge as that just yet. Mortal lives aren't something to use as pieces in a game. Even though these people don't seem to have much respect for it.'

The invisibility spells were wearing off. Jeerala waited for her body to fade back into view, then replenished the magic. This time, she didn't watch the normally unmissable entertainment of herself vanishing; her attention was completely focused on what lay below her.

'Look,' she whispered, extending a figure towards the pyramid entrance, only to realise that the gesture was completely redundant, since Ushara couldn't see it. 'There's an Argonian. By the door to the pyramid.'

'So there is. Keep an eye on him – maybe we'll get some kind of idea what this is all about.'

The Argonian was a male, that much was clear; his scales pale grey and his head feathers vibrant dark blue. He was clad in a sleeveless cloth jacket and brown breeches, the attire of a less-than-wealthy village dweller, and Jeerala noticed that he wore no boots. Quite possibly, then, he was the one who had been the guide to Pebbles's kidnapper through the marsh – the one whose claw imprints they had seen in the mud.

Whether he was or he wasn't, one thing was clear – he was no friend to the mage he was currently speaking to. He was facing one of the Dunmer, a man with long black hair, and the conversation seemed to be far from friendly. Of course it was impossible to make out the words, but the body postures and the gestures said it all.

'The mage seems to be threatening him,' Ushara murmured. 'Look at how he's jabbing his finger, right in our kinsman's face. He holds the power, you can see it.'

Jeerala could; the grey-scaled Argonian's hand movements were becoming gradually more pleading. After a few moments of inaudible argument, the Dunmer turned, picked up some kind of brown object from the ground, and threw it in the Argonian's direction. It struck him in the chest, and he wrapped his arms around it to stop it from falling. The Dunmer strolled away towards a group of his comrades, and the Argonian, after standing still for a moment, bowed his head and trudged towards the outer wall, the brown object swinging from his hand.

'He gave him a bucket.' Ushara's voice was suddenly laced with excitement. 'You know what that means? He's going down to the lake to get water. And he's heading this way – no doubt he'll go out the way we came in.'

'You mean he might see us and tell the mages, so we're stuck up here until he's been and gone?'

'Of course not! We're going down to talk to him.'

Her uncle's robes rustled, and Jeerala heard his footsteps heading over to the trapdoor. She leaped to her feet.

'Uncle! Hold on! We can't just go and talk to him, we don't even know if he's on our side! He might tell those Dunmer mages that we're here, and then we'll get caught and we'll never be able to save Pebbles –'

'Jee, calm down. You saw them talking. You really think this man's here of his own free will? He's only helping these mages because they're threatening him, but if we offer him a way out, he could help us. He's our best chance to find Pebbles – he'll know why the mages want him, and where he is.'

Jeerala breathed in deeply and tried to persuade her hysterically thumping heart to get its act together. Ushara was right, as he normally was. She couldn't let fear hold her back from trying to help Pebbles – or, indeed, the grey-scaled Argonian himself. She nodded. 'Let's go.'

They were both visible again by the time they reached the bottom of the tower. One of Ushara's Detect Life spells soon located their kinsman, approaching the wall entrance through which the two of them had gained entry to Xinio'al. Since Ushara didn't replenish his spells, Jeerala resisted the urge to recast her own, counter-intuitive though it was to be strolling around the enemy's camp in plain sight. At least there was a wall between them and the Dunmer.

'He's at the lake.' They had come to the opening in the wall; Ushara indicated for Jeerala to stand just next to it with him. 'Let's just wait for him here, and speak to him as he comes back.'

'But what if he just shouts to the mages?'

'Then we'll turn invisible again and run extremely fast. But I don't think he will.'

Soon, the crunching of plants under feet told Jeerala that the stranger was approaching. She fought back the urge to conjure up some Destruction spells, and slowed her breathing. _It's all going to be OK._

The grey-scaled man appeared in the doorway, entered the corridor, and turned towards them. Blank shock exploded across his features as he took them in, and his mouth dropped a little way open. Ushara took a step forward, lifting a hand in welcome. 'Hello there.'

The stranger clutched his water bucket close to his chest. 'What are you doing here?'

'We're on a rescue mission,' Jeerala explained, giving him what she hoped was a friendly smile. 'What's your name?'

The man stared at her, and apparently at a loss for anything else to say, replied, 'Grey-Rain.'

'I'm Ushara. I'm a travelling mage by trade. This is my niece, Jeerala.' Ushara's voice carried the same soothing tone he used on Jeerala whenever something her father said upset her. 'A boy from our village went missing an hour or so ago. We believe he's been taken here, and we'd like some confirmation, if at all possible.'

Jeerala allowed herself a moment to be surprised by Ushara's having called Hejal _our village,_ then focused her mind back onto the situation at hand. Grey-Rain's eyes were flicking between them, and he was holding his bucket out now, as if he intended to use it as a weapon. Jeerala decided not to break it to him that throwing water over an Argonian didn't have much effect.

'Get out of here.' Grey-Rain's words came out half-strangled, like those of a man who had lived three days in a desert without a single drop of water. 'You can't go in. You mustn't. They – they mustn't know you're here.'

'Don't you worry about us.' Ushara moved as if to place a comforting hand on the bucket-wielder's shoulder, but Grey-Rain flinched back as if he expected his touch to burn. 'We can take care of ourselves.'

'Not for your sake.' There was a sudden flash of anger in Grey-Rain's blue eyes. 'Venryth… you don't know what he'll do.'

Ushara nodded slowly. 'I take it Venryth leads this delightful band of kidnappers?'

Grey-Rain dipped his head. 'Yes. He – how did you know about the kidnappings?'

'We tracked our missing friend to Xinio'al easily enough,' Ushara said lightly. 'The rest was intuition. Now, how about you explain to us about Venryth?'

'I'm scared out of my wits, but there's no need to patronise me on top of everything else.' Grey-Rain set down the bucket, not taking his eyes off either of them as he did so. 'You're from Hejal, aren't you?'

'That's right,' Jeerala told him, making sure to keep smiling. 'Where are you from?'

'Xhu'atl. Past the sunken mire.' Grey-Rain shot another look between them. 'You know it?'

'Never been there, but my father trades fish with you in Fernglade,' Jeerala replied. 'Did the mages take you?'

He nodded. 'They came to Xhu'atl a month and a half ago. We were just three families, there. They came with a trading caravan, said they just wanted to buy some of our herbs. Then practically the moment the tradesmen were gone – they were well-trained fighters, well-armed – the elves turned on us. They tried to take us prisoner, so we fought. Most of us were killed.' Grey-Rain looked at the stone floor of the passageway. 'They said something about needing subtler tactics in future. Then they… they told me I was going to guide them to Xinio'al. And they told me they'd kill my family if I didn't. My wife. My daughter.'

His voice wavered and faded away. Jeerala stared at him, her eyes huge. 'And then they told you to help kidnap other people?'

'Yes. I couldn't say no, they'd kill them.' A dull sob broke from his throat. 'They'd kill them.'

'We understand.' Ushara's tone was more sober now, and very gentle. 'Did you help them capture a boy from the Hejal area earlier today? A few hours past noon.'

'I did, yeah. Venryth made me carry him here and steer the raft and…' Grey-Rain swallowed. 'He's in the underhall, with the others. My family, and the others they've taken. Beneath the courtyard.'

Ushara stretched out his hand, and this time, Grey-Rain didn't move away, letting him place it on his shoulder. 'Grey-Rain, can you tell us why they've taken these people? Why they're keeping them alive?'

'They're experimenting on us. Some of the things they do are... horrible. Mostly they don't do anything that could physically harm any of the guides, but the rest...'

'Told you so,' Ushara muttered to Jeerala over his shoulder, before turning back to Grey-Rain. 'What sort of things do they do?'

'They've only killed someone once or twice. The disposable ones. Dree-Jeelus, from Reedmire. They took him alone, and he refused to help them. They didn't have anything to threaten him with, so they didn't need him alive. And then there was Tamula, she came from Acloal, but I don't think they meant for her to die.'

'And you've no idea what they did to them?'

'No. The ones who've survived have told me enough for me to guess, but I don't want to know for certain. I just don't want my family to get hurt.'

'I don't want my best friend to get hurt, either,' Jeerala said. 'But you're not going to save your family by just doing anything these elves ask you to do. If you want to get them out, then you need to help us, and we can get them out. We're going to rescue Pebbles, so we can save your family on the way.'

Grey-Rain turned aside, gritting his teeth. 'Hist damn it, girl, you talk about it like it's easy. You think you can just waltz into the underhall and rescue them?'

'Not waltz, of course not.' Jeerala frowned. 'It'd look stupid.'

'We're not leaving, Grey-Rain,' Ushara said firmly. 'We came here to rescue Stands-On-Pebbles and that's what we're going to do. We're not going to do anything that could risk anyone getting hurt –'

'If that were true, you wouldn't be here!' Grey-Rain snatched up his bucket. 'I'm taking too long fetching this. I need to get back. You're lucky I don't want to betray my own people any further by telling Venryth you're here. Now get out.'

He turned and took a step in the direction of the door that led to the courtyard. And then, somehow, Jeerala was standing in his path.

It was very sudden. One moment, she was standing behind Ushara. The next, she was in front of Grey-Rain, blocking his way forward. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she was looking him in the eyes.

'We're not going to leave,' she heard herself say.

Grey-Rain stared at her. Jeerala stared back, and it occurred to her that she'd never seen a man of his size and age look so desperate. He was about as old as her father, and her father never let anyone know when he was afraid. Except earlier that day, when he'd begged Jeerala to stay at home in Hejal. He'd been afraid then. Because, hard as he found it to show it, he loved her. And love was the reason that Grey-Rain was refusing to help them.

If love could be so powerful… maybe it was exactly what she needed right now. Love might be what persuaded this man to listen.

'What's your daughter's name?' she asked.

Grey-Rain stared for a moment longer, blinked, frowned, and said, 'Colours-Of-Dawn.'

'That's a beautiful name,' Jeerala said, smiling. 'She must be pretty.'

'She… she is.' Grey-Rain was hugging the bucket close to his chest again. 'She has orange scales streaked with crimson and big blue eyes…'

'How old is she?' Jeerala pressed him.

'She's ten. Too young to be able to defend herself. That's why I can't put her at risk.'

Jeerala could tell that he was about to turn away again, so she took a step towards him and planted her feet more firmly, indicating that she was not about to move out of his way. 'What happens if you keep doing what these mages say? They'll keep experimenting on other people. Maybe one day they'll take your wife even if you've been a good boy and fetched their water buckets for them, because all they need is one hostage to keep you in line, right?'

Grey-Rain's grip on the bucket tightened.

'And even if they don't, what happens? You just keep going like this. Colours-Of-Dawn grows up a prisoner, and she'll never swim in a pool again, or see the sky, or fall in love. Alternatively, the mages finish their experiments and decide they don't need you anymore, and they kill everyone. Face it – even if you keep playing it safe, your family is either going to die, or they're going to spend the rest of their lives in a living death. But if you let us help, we could set them free, and you can go home to Xhu'atl and everything will be all right again.'

Ushara moved forward to stand beside her. The look he gave her was one of pure, burning pride.

'Jeerala's right, and you know it,' he said. 'You're not helping your family by slaving around for these mages, you're just making them suffer. I expect you've spent every second since they were captured praying that some miracle would happen to save them. Well, here we are. We're no mighty warriors sent by the Divines, but we can fight. We can help. And we might be your last chance.'

The silence that followed was so profound and so full of unspoken thoughts that Jeerala found herself wondering if she'd gone deaf. The entire world seemed to have shrunk to contain just the three of them, their gazes travelling between each other, and suddenly everything seemed to hinge on this moment, on the decision that Grey-Rain, a stranger, made here and now. Pebbles's life, and the lives of all the others, and her own future.

And at last, Grey-Rain bent down and placed the bucket back on the floor. The wood made a dull clunk on the stone.

'Do you at least have a plan?' he whispered.

'No, but once we know a bit more about the situation, I'm sure we will,' Ushara said breezily. 'So why don't you tell us about how things are arranged here? How many mages are we up against? How many prisoners, how well are they guarded, where are they kept, what are their ages and genders – all that kind of thing?'

Grey-Rain drew in a slow breath. 'Right now, thirteen of us are prisoners. Four – that's me, Jussacca, Kree-Lim and Holds-The-Line - we're the guides. Of the others, six are our families, the ones the mages are using to keep us obeying them. The other two are just general prisoners, the ones who didn't have anyone they loved captured with them. They're first in line to be experimented on when Venryth wants to start his tests. And then there's the new one, your friend.'

Ushara nodded. 'Apart from Pebbles, who are all the hostages?'

'For me, it's Colours-Of-Dawn and my wife, Kavesa. Jussacca has her two sons, aged twelve and six. Kree-Lim has his wife, and Holds-The-Line has his husband. The other two, the ones with no one they need to look out for, are Leaps-The-Roots and Vasheeka.'

'How many of them could fight?'

'Everyone except the children, if they were pushed. Leaps-The-Roots is a little old, and most of us don't have any fighting skill, but if it came to it…' Grey-Rain shook his head. 'But you've got to remember that they've not been treating us well. We're not as strong as we normally would be.'

'That won't matter. I'm just trying to get a sense of where we stand.' Ushara had started pacing in a square around Jeerala and Grey-Rain, just as he had in Jeerala's home earlier, when trying to work out the problem of the wamasu. 'So where are they kept? You mentioned an underhall?'

'It's underneath the pyramid. You can't get in except through the main temple; there's a staircase leading down. One of the mages is always on guard, and the staircase is covered in runes. Storm-Thrown-Water tried to get out once, and he almost died when he stepped on one of them.'

Ushara's pacing picked up speed. 'If the runes were gone, and the guard taken care of, how would you go about escaping?'

'The only way in or out of the underhall is through the pyramid, like I said.' Grey-Rain gestured helplessly in its direction. 'And that's where the mages live. They only need to put a guard on the stairs for extra security, there's always someone in the main pyramid who could raise the alarm if we tried to get out. Usually most of them are in there.'

'How many of them are there, altogether?'

'Ten. Venryth leads. His wife, Drivya, she's usually with him. They're the ringleaders. '

'So we have them outnumbered,' Ushara murmured. 'Even if we take the children out of the equation, we have one more than they do.'

Grey-Rain looked at him incredulously. 'One more fisherman. One more herb-gatherer. One more weaver or carpenter or ferryman. They're mages, powerful ones – they could kill us with one spell. We just can't fight them head on. Do you think we'd still be here if we could?'

'Yes, I know. I'm just gathering the pieces together.' Ushara stopped short, spun around, and began pacing again in the opposite direction. 'When is the smallest amount of mages in the pyramid?'

'If they're doing one of their experiments, most of them go up into a room higher in the pyramid. That's where they… do whatever it is they do.'

'And you don't have any idea what it is?'

'No. I mean, I know what they do, just not for what end. They've taken most of us off at some point. I was lucky, they just paralysed me again and again and timed how long it took for me to shrug it off. Some of us…' He sighed. 'They… they cut up Leaps-The-Roots. Used magic to keep him alive while they examined him, then healed him. He's not been the same since.'

Ushara stopped again, but this time, he didn't keep going. 'What other kinds of experiments have they done?'

'The worst was what they did to Storm-Thrown-Water. He said they tied him up and cast spells at him. Fire, frost and lightning. They seemed to be measuring how much pain he was in. Then they looked at how fast he could run after being hit, and how much weight he could carry. They did the same to Vasheeka, too, except they took her out into the lake and made her swim afterwards.'

Something was taking shape in Jeerala's mind – a suspicion, a theory, a… a hypothesis. That was a good word. She silently rolled it around her mouth, then decided to test it out loud.

'I have a hypothesis,' she said slowly.

Grey-Rain looked at her, his expression weary. 'That's nice. What is it, some kind of infection?'

'She means she's got a theory. And I'm working towards the same one, no doubt.' Ushara placed his hands on his hips. 'Have they ever examined how well you can think strategically, or examined your problem-solving skills?'

A thoughtful look crept over Grey-Rain's face. 'Yes, I… they have. They took me, Holds-The-Line, Storm-Thrown-Water, Kree-Lim and Vasheeka. They took us into the courtyard – they'd set up a sort of obstacle course using the canals and some crates –'

'Canals?' Jeerala interrupted.

'Yes, there's paths built for water all over the courtyard. They lead right into the pyramid. We think they were meant to water the Hist tree back when it grew inside the pyramid, or that the ancient priests used them to channel away the Hist sap, or something.' He waved a hand dismissively. 'Anyway, they told us to get from one end of the courtyard to another, while they'd try to stop us with non-lethal spells. They kept us at it for the whole day, changing the course, making us work in different teams, making notes… it might even have been fun if it hadn't been run by an insane Dunmer cult.'

Ushara snapped his fingers. 'That almost proves it. Look, Grey-Rain, Venryth's going to get suspicious if you're not back with the water soon. Go back to your family if you can, tell them we're here and we're going to help. And tell them we've got a plan. I'll find one of you soon to tell you what it is.'

Grey-Rain stooped to collect his bucket. 'I will. And… thank you. I suppose you're right. Better risk ourselves trying to get out than spend the rest of our lives here.'

He hurried off down the corridor, holding his head and tail a little higher than they had been before. Jeerala waited until he was out of sight, then turned back to her uncle. 'Do you actually have a plan?'

'No, but I will do soon. Come on, let's get back up that tower. And on the way, you can tell me what you think is going on here.'

Jeerala followed him back towards the staircase. 'I think they're… trying to see what makes us tick. I mean, Argonians. They're Dunmer, so maybe they were around during the Invasion, and they saw us beat them. Maybe they're trying to work out why.'

'Exactly my thinking. The Dunmer I befriended when I was in Morrowind told me that most of their people are still amazed that we were able to defeat them – and when I say we, I don't mean Argonians, I mean people like us. Like Grey-Rain said, we're not fighters here. We're fishers, hunters, gatherers, craftsmen. We don't have innate magical talent, like the Dunmer. So how could we beat them?'

'That's why they cast spells at them – they were trying to see if they were resistant to magic.'

'And that peculiar obstacle course, that was a test of strategy. Get a group of fit, adult, but untrained Argonians together and throw them into a situation where they're at the disadvantage, and give them obstacles and water, the things that Argonians always make the most of on the battlefield. Watch how they deal with the problem, and you'll learn how an Argonian mind makes its plans and copes with a situation. What applies to Grey-Rain and his friends applies to an army of Argonians too.'

'But why should an Argonian mind think any different to a Dark Elf's?'

'It's not exactly the fact that we're Argonians; it's the fact that Argonians are survivors.' Ushara let out a sigh. 'Think about it, Jee. Think about the place our kind evolved to cope with. Black Marsh is perhaps the most deadly and hostile place on Nirn, and we survive here. We thrive here. It's that knack for survival that made us such a deadly force when we went up against the Dunmer – we use different tactics, exploit different weaknesses, take different risks. If they come to understand our mentality, they know how to beat us in future.'

Jeerala found herself practically bounding up the tower steps. 'Fine. So we stop them. Does that mean we have to kill them? All of them?'

Ushara's silence was her answer. Jeerala turned to him; the inside of the tower was cold, but it suddenly seemed to have become colder. 'There's no other way?'

'If you can think of any, Jee, I'd love to hear it.' Ushara sighed heavily. 'But if these people survive, they'll try again. I've had to wipe out entire clans of bandits, vampires, what-have-you, for that very reason. They're like bindweed. If you don't rip them out right at the root, they just grow up again and choke everything else around them.'

'But they're not bindweed, Uncle. They're _people.'_

'I know, Jeejee. I know. Don't think that I like the thought either.'

When Jeerala had first brought up the idea of killing the mages, it had seemed a fairly simple concept. But now that she had seen them, watched them walking about… it was so much more immediate and more real that she knew Ushara had been right when he warned her against taking life. Killing someone else would hurt her. It just would.

She sucked in air, and decided to change the subject. Dwelling on the thought that she might have killed a fellow mortal by the time the sun set wouldn't do anything to calm her nerves. 'Do you think that these people might be here… officially?'

'You mean, could the Dunmer government have sent them to research us? It's possible, but extremely unlikely. The Dunmer might not like us, but this is extreme. Torture, for one thing. And making a camp in the heart of Black Marsh, in secret. There are much more efficient ways they could learn about our skills and strategies. No, I think this is just a group who've decided to take matters into their own hands. It's possible a high ranking member of one of the Great Houses might have paid them, but the likelihood is that if that's the case, it was covert. I don't think the Dunmer want to get into another war with us.'

Jeerala sucked on her lower lip. 'You met some Dunmer when you travelled around Morrowind, right?'

'Sure did. They're pretty common over there.'

'You said some of them were your friends.'

'They were. I met some good people there. There was a brother and sister I travelled with for a while, Llyneth and Rinya. They were good fun. Always had a joke ready and didn't hold anything against me for being an Argonian. That's what most Dark Elves are like – people. No mortal is inherently different from all the others because on their species. They're idiots, they're heroes, they're scoundrels, they're warriors. Same as Argonians. Same as everyone else. That's what you learn when you're an adventurer, Jee.'

'Then why are these ones so bad?'

Ushara stopped walking and twisted his head around, fixing Jeerala with a piercing yellow gaze. 'Because this is the way mortals are. Some of us are always going to want to cause harm. Some are always going to be… evil.' He sighed again, with even more force than before. 'We can't change it, Jeerala. All we can do is try to stop them from hurting the people who aren't like them.'

There was an odd heat behind Jeerala's eyes, the kind of heat that built up there as a forewarning of tears. She frowned, wondering what it was about her uncle's statement that was moving her to tears, and quickly found her answer. The thought of people so thoroughly _bad_ that they saw no reason not to hurt others, people who didn't have enough compassion to see that it was wrong, people who didn't have enough love… how could that thought not make her cry?

'But why?' she whispered. 'Why would the Divines make people like that?'

'Well, they probably didn't. Probably things happened in their lives that made them this way. These mages, for instance - I wouldn't be surprised if they'd lost family during our invasion of Morrowind.'

'Oh.' Jeerala's mouth was suddenly almost too dry for her to get out the simple sound. 'That's… that's really bad. But why would the Divines let that kind of thing happen, too?'

Ushara gave a small, helpless shake of his head. 'I don't know, Jee. I just don't know. Maybe it's for the sake of the rest of us. Maybe if some of us are bad people, those of us who are good can become better. When we face these monsters, we learn who we are.'

Jeerala closed her eyes. 'I think I'd rather live my whole life not knowing who I am, and have fewer people get hurt.'

'I know you would. That's what makes you one of the good people. But we can't try to work it out now. We just have to work out how to stop these people.'

'No. No, we don't.' Jeerala forced her tears back and allowed her distress to mutate into anger – not at Ushara, she could never be angry with Ushara. Just at the situation. At how bitterly unfair it was. 'We don't have to kill them. If they've done some bad things, it's probably because bad things have happened to them. We need to get Pebbles and the others out of here. But we don't have to kill the mages.'

'Jee…'

'No. I won't kill anyone unless I have to, to stop them from stopping us getting Pebbles and everyone away safely. I'll fight if they make me, but only then.' She moved past Ushara and hopped onto a higher step so that their heads were on a level. 'But we have to give these people a second chance.'

'I don't think Grey-Rain and his fellow prisoners would agree with you.'

'I don't care. Uncle, if we help the prisoners escape, we don't need to kill any of the mages. The only reason they've survived this long in Black Marsh is because they had Argonians helping them, right?'

Ushara inclined his head slowly. 'I see what you're saying. You think that if we take away their Argonian guides, they'll be stranded here in Xinio'al.'

'That way, they've got a chance. They could survive here on this island – they could catch fish and grow plants and that kind of thing. Or if they're feeling brave, they could try making it back to Morrowind on their own. They're mages, they might be able to make it. I know it's still cruel to abandon them, but that way they still have a chance to become better. If we kill them, they don't have any chance.'

Ushara let out yet another sigh and reached out to her, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. 'Jee. You're so… forgiving. You do need to take into account the fact that the prisoners may want revenge.'

'They're unarmed and facing extremely powerful spellcasters, right? They're more sensible than that. I hope. I think they'll just want to escape. I know I would.'

With a slow nod, Ushara dropped his hands. 'You're probably right. It's very risky either way. Let's head up to the tower and put together a full plan.'

'No killing unless we have to,' Jeerala told him, surprised by how firm her own voice was. 'Promise me.'

Ushara frowned at her for a moment, then nodded, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, his tail swishing slightly in a way that indicated pleasure. 'I promise, Jeerala. By the Hist, these mages didn't deserve to have an enemy like you.'

Before Jeerala could ask what he meant, he spun around and began heading up the tower steps again at a run. 'Come on, then. Let's break out the invisibility spells again.'

Within a few minutes, they were back on top of the tower, lying with their bellies against the stone, peering down at the pyramid and the courtyard surrounding it. Jeerala could make out the canals that Grey-Rain had mentioned, now that she was looking for them. She tipped her head on one side, wondering how the mages had filled them to put Grey-Rain and the others through that peculiar assault course. 'There must be some kind of flood gates leading into the canals from the lake. If they build the temple around the Hist tree, the priests would have needed something like that to keep the tree watered.'

Ushara nodded. 'Yes, and the canals were meant to be decorative, too. Look at the pattern they make. When filled with water, they must look beautiful from above.'

'If we could find out how to fill them, do you reckon we could swim out that way? No Dunmer could catch an Argonian in the water.'

'It's certainly a possibility. I doubt it would be a good idea to follow them out into the lake; the mothers likely won't want their kids exposed to whatever could be lurking in the water. But we'd definitely get out a lot faster if we swam short distances through the canals. It's a start.'

Jeerala placed her elbows on the stone and propped her head up on her hands. 'What we need to do is work out how to distract all the mages so they stop guarding the prisoners. Or at least most of them do.'

'Any ideas?'

Jeerala shrugged. 'The only thing I can think of that would distract them is them being attacked. But the predicament-' She stopped for a moment to admire how wonderful that word was, then carried on with a small smile. 'The predicament is that if one of us attacked them all at once, we'd just get killed, there's just too many of them.'

'Mmm-hmm.' Ushara let out a huff. 'Don't suppose you can think of any other options?'

'You can't do that thing the mages did with the wamasu, can you? Animal mind control?'

''Fraid not. That kind of Illusion is out of my league.'

'But what about fury spells? Couldn't you use them to stir up some animals against them?'

'Maybe, but I doubt I'd be able to –' Ushara stopped speaking so suddenly that Jeerala knew instantly that he had an idea. 'Wait. If I did finds some animals, used fury spells on them, then let them follow me here… it'd take a lot of careful setting up, but I could handle it. It wouldn't even take something as intelligent as a wamasu – just hackwings, or marsh cats, or… that could work, Jee, that could really work.'

'Are you sure they wouldn't hurt you?'

'It's not me we should be worried about, it's you. You realise what this will mean for you, right?'

'Yeah.' Jeerala breathed in deeply. 'It'd mean I'd have to turn invisible, sneak down into the underhall, deal with any guards that are left, and get the prisoners to follow me out.'

'I could probably rejoin you before you go down there, if I timed things properly. But if I don't make it, yes. You'll have to get there alone.' The invisibility spell kept Jeerala from seeing her uncle's face, but his voice told her everything she needed to know about how afraid he was. Funny. Children were meant to be the ones who got scared. Adults were meant to reassure them and tell them that everything would be all right, even if it wasn't true. But today, she'd seen Lateesh break down in tears when Pebbles had been taken, and now here was Ushara, clearly terrified.

 _Adults are like Dunmer,_ she realised. _They're just like us._

'I can do it,' she said. 'My best friend's in there. I can summon a flame atronach to help me if I need to. I'm scared, but I can do it.'

'Gods forgive me.' Ushara's voice was oddly cracked. 'I'm sending a seventeen-year-old girl who's been able to conjure flame atronachs for all of about two hours into a nest of Dunmer sorcerers.'

'You're not sending me. I want to go,' Jeerala told him shortly. 'You can't ask me to go home, and I'm not going home. I'm going to help. End of story.'

A strained but still genuine chuckle came from the place she guessed to be Ushara's position. 'I know. If there's one thing you've inherited from your father, it's his stubbornness.' There was a short silence, then Ushara spoke again. 'Jee, you should know – I couldn't be prouder of you if you were my own daughter. Sometimes, I feel like you are.'

Jeerala felt that heat behind her eyes again, but this time, it felt… nice. She quickly stood up before she could do something childish like crying that would make Ushara even more reluctant to trust her with this.

'Let's just go,' she said. 'I don't think we're going to come up with a better plan. You get the animals, I'll get the prisoners. If we can fill up the canals and swim part of the way out, all the better. We get across the courtyard and run out across the bridge. We can use wards to shield the prisoners while we run. And then we just make it out into the marsh and get home and have a cup of warm milk and stop Pebbles's family from worrying about him. And then you can finish teaching me all those other spells. Deal?'

A rustling sound told her that Ushara was standing up. She didn't know how he did it, but somehow, despite her invisibility, he was able to tell where her hand was, take it in his, and shake it.

'Deal.'

* * *

 **I apologise for this chapter's lack of action. Honestly, the Big Dramatic Showdown was intended to have started by now, but I really don't want these chapters to go over 8000 words. It's going to change soon, I promise... action will happen. I hope you enjoy it when it comes.**

 **Before you go, could you possibly just tell me, is this story's cover showing up properly? Half the time, when I look at it, it's reverted to the Khajiit picture that's my avatar. If this is just my computer being terrible, that's fine, but if not I want to try and fix it, I'm quite happy with the proper cover.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Who here hates writer's block?**

 **Me. I do.**

 **Still, I did my best with this chapter, and I hope you enjoy it too. The action is about to begin...**

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE

Jeerala was more or less used to going unnoticed by people. She did quite like to have the attention of those around her, if just so she knew that her life wasn't just going on in a quiet corner, away from the oblivious eyes of the rest of the world. But much of the time, she was prone to retreating into her room or her den in the clearing with a book, and it was amazing how easily the gazes of the other residents of Hejal would just slide over her when she was there. And then there was the working day, in which any suggestion Meer-Lai made would be listened to, but anything Jeerala said would seem to be deflected by an invisible ward around the ears of her family.

But this was very different. Being not noticed was nothing like being not seen. No amount of being ignored or overlooked could have prepared her for quite how nerve-wracking - another wonderful word - it was to walk right in front of a mad, magic-wielding kidnapper and have them not see you. She had a fair amount of faith in her own magical abilities, but still… she half-expected her Invisibility spell to expire at any moment, leaving her standing helpless under her enemies' eyes.

 _You've still got a few minutes before it wears off, Jeerala,_ she told herself firmly. _Just get to the floodgates. That's all you have to do._

Well, it wasn't all she had to do, but it was the first step, at any rate. Ushara was already carrying out his part of the plan. It had, of course, forced him to swim back across the lake, but Jeerala was certain that he could reach the far side unharmed. He wanted her to wait at least ten minutes, he told her, so that he could hunt around and find some animals to cast fury spells on, and then it was time for her to get moving.

The first step was for her to reach the mechanisms which controlled the flow of water in the canals. Of course, she wasn't supposed to activate them yet – if the currently empty canals filled up, the mages would know something was wrong straight away. But she'd need to know where they were if she wanted to use the water to help get them out later. 'Of course, if the controls are too far away from a sensible escape route, forget it,' Ushara had told her. 'But we'd best not pass up on a possible advantage, if we can use it.'

From the flood gates, she was meant to sneak into the temple (still invisible and muffled, naturally) find the underhall, knock out (or worse, but she was trying to keep that from her mind at the moment) anyone on guard, get down the steps without triggering the runes, get everyone out without triggering the runes, and then wait for Ushara's distraction. And then there'd be the added difficulty of persuading all the prisoners to trust her. Grey-Rain seemed to be on their side now, and Pebbles of course would follow her, she knew that, but the others… the others might take a little more convincing.

It was going to be tricky, Jeerala thought, and then scolded herself for the mental understatement. It was not going to be _tricky,_ it was going to be nigh-on impossible. Somehow, she had to get inside Xinio'al without being detected and win the trust of a bunch of complete strangers before Ushara arrived bringing a pack of riled-up animals.

Somewhere, something, she knew, was bound to go wrong. It was just what happened. The heroes in the books never had their quests go completely to plan. The evil overlord always turned out to be not quite dead, or the trap designed for the enemy would accidentally ensnare a friend, or a storm would come at just the right moment for lightning to light up the hero as they tried to sneak out of the enemy's secret lair undetected. There was always a snag. Jeerala tried her hardest not to think about the fact that usually these snags ended up with one of the heroes getting killed. And because very few authors ever killed their protagonists, mostly because carrying on a story without one was hard, usually the sidekicks bit the dust. And she was the sidekick.

 _There's nothing wrong with being the sidekick,_ she reminded herself. _The sidekicks get to be the plucky comic relief and the ones who cheer up the heroes when they get depressed. They're not the first people to get killed anyway, the ones who die first are the minor characters who no one really knows…_

Which meant the first people to die would be the prisoners. Which was extremely unfair. Jeerala decided she should probably stop the book-versus-life comparison. The only problem was that it was the only thing that was keeping her mind off the fact that she was currently walking across the courtyard of Xinio'al in broad daylight.

She was, of course, repeatedly ducking out of sight behind statues to recast her spells, but it didn't make it any less stressful. True, there were only five or so mages out in the courtyard, sitting around a campfire they had constructed near the centre, practising their spells, chatting, and poring over ancient-looking tomes which under different circumstances Jeerala would have asked if she could borrow. None of them was looking her way, and why should they? Quite apart from the fact that she was invisible, they had no reason to suspect that someone would creep into their secret lair.

So far, her luck was holding; she had passed the campfire, and no one seemed to have heard her. She hadn't even tripped over her tail yet. There had been one feather-raising moment when she'd almost fallen in a canal, but thankfully, it turned out that Muffle spells hid frightened squeaks as well as footsteps.

She stopped by the nearest statue and stood still for a moment, trying to guess where the canal controls might be. It made sense for them to have been constructed near the lake shore, so she headed towards the outer wall. The sky was darkening now, and she knew that they only had about two hours of daylight left. It sent a shiver of worry running through her. Even if they succeeded in rescuing Pebbles and the other prisoners, would they even be able to travel home? In the dark, Black Marsh was twice as dangerous.

To her relief, she didn't have time to dwell for long on the thought. As she rounded the temple corner - the structure seemed even vaster up close – she caught sight of a wooden contraption build into the courtyard wall. From where it was situated, half in and half out of one of the canals, it would make sense for it to be the floodgate control. She hurried over to it, taking care to stay a safe distance away from the canal edge. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to the ancient Hist priests to build railings.

The control seemed simple enough – a long wooden lever, surprisingly new for a temple of this age. Maybe the mages had repaired it. By kneeling beside it and sticking her head into the empty canal channel, Jeerala could see that pulling the lever would set in motion a cog system that would pull up what appeared to be a sliding stone door that separated the canal from the lake.

'Should be simple enough,' she whispered, and the fact that her worlds were almost audible told her that it was time to refresh her Muffle spell. The control wasn't too far from the temple entrance, which meant it could feasibly be used to aid their escape. And thinking of the escape reminded her that she now had nothing else to use as an excuse for procrastinating in regards to the most difficult part of her mission. It was time to head into the temple of Xinio'al.

Jeerala sucked in air and reminded herself of how confidently she had spoken to Grey-Rain and her uncle earlier. She'd been determined enough then; she had to stay determined now.

She recast her Invisibility spell, just in case. A thought flashed through her mind that it might be a good idea to come up with a plan for dealing with any guards, but when four seconds of intense thinking hadn't brought any ideas to her, she shrugged and headed in the direction of the temple entrance. She could swim that river when she came to it.

It was impossible not to slow her pace as she stepped through the trapezium-shaped archway (Jeerala wasn't sure it could really be called an archway, since it wasn't an arc, but it couldn't really be called a doorway since there was no door, so archway it was) that led inside the temple. Of course it was partly out of wariness, since this was the home of her enemies, but for the most part, it was simple awe. She was standing in a building that had been old when her grandparents had been young. Generations of Hist priests must have lived out their lives within these walls. These stone walls were physical history, a remnant of the past that had endured for centuries and would still be standing when Jeerala was long since gone. And _people_ had made it. Ordinary people like her.

She shook herself; there was no time for scholarly musings now. Much as she would have liked to stay and examine the interior of the temple properly, she had a job to do. From the entrance, a passageway carved a dead-straight line through the pyramid wall. Here and there, corridors branched off on either side. Jeerala ignored these; Grey-Rain had said that the underhall could be reached by a stairway leading down to it from the main chamber, so to the main chamber she would go. And it made sense for the chamber in question to be the one at the end of the most direct route through the pyramid.

If only the passage weren't so _dark._

At last, a dim glow ahead of her told her that she was reaching the end of this corridor. Yet again, she did a spell-refresh, in case any company awaited her, and pressed on. She soon saw that she had been right – the passageway opened out into a room so large that Jeerala had to tip her head right back to see the ceiling – not that there was very much ceiling. Most of the roof, as she'd seen from the tower, was open to the sky. In the centre of the chamber, below the hole, was a patch of floor that had not been tiled over as the rest had. It was choked with weeds, and Jeerala guessed that this was the place where the Hist tree had once grown. With the tree gone, the seeds of smaller plants must have blown in through the hole in the roof and taken root. Apart from this one patch of green, the chamber was empty, except for a few rows of stone benches arranged in a circle around the place where the tree must have been. Closing her eyes, Jeerala tried to picture this place the way it must have been hundreds of years ago, with the enormous tree reaching up through the ceiling, the walls lit by the orange glow of its sap, the benches filled with the Hist priests, their heads bowed in reverence. Even in her head, the scene was so beautiful, so _sacred,_ that fury flashed through her. These mages had no right to be here, disturbing this place.

Yet another reason to stop them.

Turning in a circle on the spot, Jeerala cast her eyes around. The first step was to check that this room was deserted. The quietness told her that it was, and yet it seemed impossible that none of the mages could be inside. Hadn't Grey-Rain said that they could usually be found here? Unless… unless they were off performing one of their experiments. The thought made bile rise in her throat, and she quickly swallowed it down.

It was almost a relief, oddly enough, to spot the Dunmer sitting some distance away, a book propped open in his lap. Jeerala ducked behind a bench – she hadn't forgotten she was invisible, but instinct was a hard thing to overcome – and peered over the edge at him. He seemed to be seated at the top of a flight of steps leading downwards, which meant that he was almost certainly the guard posted at the entrance to the underhall. He, therefore, combined with some runes, was the only thing standing between her and Pebbles.

She let out a soft huff. Somehow, she had to get past him. And the runes, too – which, she realised suddenly, she had no idea how to set off without, well, stepping on them. She toyed with the idea of running at the Dunmer and knocking him down the stairs so that he'd set them off himself. But then he'd most likely be killed, and whatever he'd done, she didn't want that. No, if at all possible, she wanted him taken out without bloodshed.

In books, it seemed easy enough to knock out a guard. Just hit them hard enough on the head, and down they'd go. But Jeerala had a feeling this wouldn't be like that. For one thing, she had nothing to hit him with, and her fists definitely wouldn't do the job. Even if she found a weapon somewhere, she'd probably hit him too hard and accidentally kill him, or at least give him lifelong brain damage. And… well, she was a seventeen-year-old girl with the martial arts skills of a dead rootworm. She had to face facts: she simply was not going to take him out that way.

It was impossible not to think of her strong, tall, capable father. Surely he'd be able to knock out a man with a hard blow. Any of the men in her village could probably do it, except for Pebbles (not because he didn't have the strength, but because he'd never raise a fist against a fellow mortal unless they'd attacked him first) and she had a feeling Lateesh or Ireethra could have done it too without too much trouble. Maybe her father was right. Maybe she had no right to want to be an adventurer, when she was of no use to the prisoners now.

 _The prisoners._ The thought made her jaws part slightly. Yes, that was an idea that was worth having. She didn't have the strength to knock out an adult Dunmer, but Grey-Rain and his friends… together, they might.

Best to get the measure of the situation before she acted. Keeping her hands low so that the casting light didn't catch the elf's eye, Jeerala cast her cloaking spells again. Then she stepped out from behind the bench and headed over towards the mage.

She knew that her spells would keep him from noticing her, but still, it seemed impossible that he wouldn't look up at her and demand an explanation for her presence at any moment. Yet she was able to get within a few metres of him without him so much as glancing up from his book. Glad that the Muffle spell hid the sound of her breathing, she crouched beside the staircase and peered down its length. As Grey-Rain had said, there were rune spells littering the steps – one lightning, one fire, one frost. At the bottom of the stairs, she could just about make out the shadowy forms of two Argonians – a young woman and a small child. The other prisoners were out of sight, but Jeerala could hear them moving around. There seemed to be nothing else of note, barring a small wooden device that had been built onto the railing surrounding the stairs.

Tipping her head on one side, Jeerala ran her eyes over it. It was a simple contraption – twist a wheel, and a rope with a hook attached could be lowered or lifted out of the underhall. Jeerala would have snapped her fingers if she hadn't been afraid of alerting the elf. This must be how the prisoners were fed – by attaching buckets of water or food to the hook and sending them down, the mages would never have to go down themselves, unless they wanted to bring someone out to experiment on. That would reduce the amount of time the prisoners had for escape attempts. After all, the mages would have to remove the runes going down the stairs, and that left a path for the hostages to use to escape.

That explained then, why the prisoners hadn't tried to overpower the guard themselves – he was never in their reach. But if he were placed within their reach…

Straightening up, Jeerala made her way back over to the benches and sat down behind one, placing her chin in her hands and concentrating hard. She'd been worried that the hostages would have been tied up or chained or something vindictive that would have been just like these Dunmer. But no, they were able to move around. Which meant they _could_ carry out her plan for her. If the first, craziest part of said plan went off without a hitch.

Her concealment spells were set to expire at any minute. She had no way of knowing how much longer Ushara would be. There was no time to come up with any other plan – this one would have to do.

She breathed in deeply, and decided to do the one thing that was always garunteed to calm her down – playing with interesting words. 'This plan is preposterous, asinine, and nonsensical,' she whispered. 'However, I am tenacious and innovative, and that mage is an ignoramus. I just have to be imperturbable.'

Feeling a little better, she huddled down closer to the floor, waiting. At last, her body blinked back into view. Time to move. Resisting the temptation to cast the spell again, Jeerala jumped to her feet and set off in the direction of the mage.

She was unsurprised when he looked up quickly; after all, there was nothing to mask the sound of her footsteps now. But while he rose to his feet and laid down his book, he did not, as she had feared, conjure a Destruction spell into his hand. After all, how was a mage low enough down his group's hierarchy (another beautiful word) to be used for guard duty supposed to be experienced enough to tell different Argonians apart? No, as far as he was concerned, she'd be just another prisoner – maybe one he didn't remember seeing before, but as long as she played her cards right, she could take him in.

Hopefully.

'What are you doing?' The mage's voice was sharp, but not, Jeerala thought, overly suspicious. 'Why's someone as young as you out of the underhall?'

Jeerala had already decided on a method for dealing with questions she had no answer for: act as terrified as she felt, and pretend she didn't speak a word of the common tongue. Licking the inside of her mouth in an attempt to stop it from becoming too dry to speak, she gestured in the direction of the temple entrance. 'Venryth wanted me. For…' She spoke in Jel, and let the sentence trail off, as if she were too frightened of the thought to even voice it out loud.

'Scale-skin _s'wit_ ,' the elf muttered. 'Whatever you were doing, is it done?'

'What?' Jeerala said, tilting her head.

'Nerevar's mercy.' The Dunmer rolled his eyes – such incredible vibrant crimson that Jeerala found it hard not to stare at them. 'You – go –back – in?' He slowed his speech as if talking to a small child, jabbing a finger first at her and then towards the stairs.

'Yes, that's right.' Jeerala nodded, tapping her chest and indicating the stairs. 'I need to go in there. You don't speak Jel, do you?'

'Fine. Stay there and don't move.'

'I'll take that as a no. Your eyes are actually pretty awesome, you know. It's a shame about the insanity and the evilness and everything.'

'Gods help me. You _stay there.'_ The elf held his hand out vertically in the way one might signal to a dog, and to underline his point, curled his fingers around a fire spell. Jeerala gave a few quick nods.

The mage turned his back on her, facing the stairs, but leaving the hand clutching the spell extended towards her. The other hand he stretched out towards the steps, and as Jeerala watched, the coloured lines in the stone that marked out the positions of the runes lifted upwards, glowing in the air above the steps for a moment before dissipating like smoke in a breeze. _Beautiful spellcasting,_ Jeerala told the mage silently. _If you weren't using this magic to kidnap and imprison people, I'd give you a round of applause. I actually would._

And now it was time for the next stage of her plan. She'd cast so many Invisibility spells in the last hour or so that it was as natural to her now as breathing. The enchantment washed over her body within a heartbeat, and she was out of sight. Seeing the movement, Jeerala guessed, from the corner of his eye, the elf spun around, and his brows (brows with actual _hair_ ) lowered as he found no trace of her. With a flick of his wrist, a second fire spell ignited in his left hand.

'Where've you gone?' he demanded. 'There's no point trying to hide or escape, you know you're not going to – _ungh!'_

The final word – or attempt at a word – came about from Jeerala doing something her parents, especially her father, had instructed her never to do. In her youth, she'd had a few scraps with Meer-Lai over one petty disagreement or another, and sometimes some friendly wrestles with Pebbles, and she'd learned two things from them. The first thing was that anyone larger than yourself, as this mage was, was extremely hard to knock over. The second was that the best way to manage this was to make sure they were absolutely not in any state to fight back when you tried it. And the third was that boys – and she was sure that male Dunmer were no different to male Argonians – had one extremely area of their bodies that was… vulnerable. Injure them there, and they'd be too busy trying to cope with the amount of pain now demanding to be registered by their brain to fight back.

The one time she'd tried this before, Meer-Lai had gone in tears to their parents, and the talking-to that Jeerala had received had been severe, though her mothered had kept pursing her lips in a way that made it look suspiciously as if she were trying to bite back laughter. This time, however, there was no risk of getting a parental lecture, so Jeerala went ahead, aiming her invisible foot directly at the intended strategic location. The Dunmer let out a yelp worthy of a three-year-old, doubled over like a tree in a strong wind, and staggered back a full pace and a half, until he was teetering on the edge of the top step.

Jeerala knew that any kind of contact with another person would always cause the expiry of an Invisiblity spell, and so she was prepared for the instant re-appearance of her body. She reacted quickly, putting to use another tactic she'd learned from her youthful scraps with Meer-Lai. Argonians had horns and scales for a reason, and now Jeerala used them. Dropping her head, she charged as best as she could at short range, slamming her forehead into his chest area. The toughness of her scales absorbed the blow for her so that she felt nothing more than a slight ringing between her eyes. The Dunmer, however, crashed backwards, hit the stairs, and was sent rolling down them to lie in a whimpering heap at the bottom.

Without hesitation, Jeerala half-ran, half-skidded down the steps and threw up a Candlelight spell, illuminating the stunned faces that stared from every corner. 'Well, are you going to knock him out or what?'

There was a half-second's silence; then a man with dark blue scales and a webbed crest sped forwards from the shadows, dropped to his knees at the Dunmer's side and slammed both fists into the back of his neck as he moved to rise. In a heartbeat a second man was there, his scales dark green with an orange patch on his chin, dealing a hefty punch to the elf's head. As others moved in from around the room, Jeerala took a few steps back. Justice should really be for hostages to deal out – as long as they didn't go to far.

As soon as she was certain that the elf was not about to get up, Jeerala coughed loudly. 'OK, I think that's enough.'

The orange-chinned man snapped his head up towards her. 'Why? After everything he's done? He deserves to be ripped apart.'

Alarmed by the sound of murmurs of assent, Jeerala used a line that all the best book heroes seemed to end up using. 'If you kill him, you'll be just as bad as he is.'

'Fine. Let us be.' The crested Argonian spoke the words in a hiss.

 _Of course. I'm the sidekick, and that's a line for a hero. Darn._

'Fine. If you kill him, I'll leave you in here and won't bother telling you the escape plan.'

One of the women spoke up, her expression quizzical. 'Are you the girl Grey-Rain was talking about?'

'That's her.' Relief shot through Jeerala as she spotted a familiar face; Grey-Rain was watching from nearby with his hand on the arm of a woman who could only be his wife, Kavesa. 'Didn't expect her to be the one leading the charge, but small help is better than no help.'

'Unless it gets us killed.' Jeerala didn't see who said this, and she decided for their sake not to look in the direction of their voice. That way, she'd never know who to dislike, and she could go on feeling sorry for them.

'My name's Jeerala,' she said. 'I'm a mage, sort of, though not like these elf people. I'm from Hejal. Pebbles is my friend.'

'Pebbles?' the crested man muttered.

'The boy they brought in this afternoon,' Grey-Rain explained.

Jeerala nodded eagerly. 'Where is he?'

When grown-ups shot anxious glances at each other, Jeerala had long ago learned, it never meant good news. She sucked in a long breath and prepared herself for the worst – not that she wanted to consider the worst.

'They took him off to experiment on.' Grey-Rain's voice was low, his eyes downturned. 'They took him into the upper halls just after I got back here.'

Jeerala had never felt fear of the kind she felt then.

Once, when she had been about eleven, her family had been heading down the river to Fernglade to trade the wares of the past few days. It had been a week of light rain, rather than the normal daily downpour, and the water level was lower than it had normally been. And so her father's raft caught a rock or thick root it would normally have floated over, jolting the raft and lurching one half of it upwards. Jeerala had been thrown up and to the side by the sudden movement – and flung into the water. She'd heard her mother cry out, she felt the current throwing itself against her, pushing her downstream, and she'd the green patch of liquid ahead of her that could only be voriplasm.

The fear that had shot through her had been something that felt old as life itself. It was pure survival instinct, the unbreakable urge to live. She didn't think, she _couldn't_ think, all she could do was obey the terror that was screaming at her, forcing her to move, to swim, to kick out for the raft and grasp her father's hand so he could pull her back aboard.

This was something very different. This fear was… _conscious._ And it was absolutely nothing to do with her. What she feared wasn't death, or harm to herself. It was Pebbles, her friend, being hurt. Because that was what the mages would do to him.

It occurred to her that she and Ushara had not planned for this. This was it, the snag, the catch, the one thing that went wrong. It always happened in stories, but it was supposed to happen to the hero. The sidekick wasn't supposed to have to deal with it. But this sidekick did need to deal with it, Jeerala thought, closing her eyes, and so she would.

'OK, change of plan,' she said quietly. Raising her voice, she addressed the gathered hostages. 'All right, I'm going to have to go and get him. But I guess it kinds of works to our advantage, because if most of them are up there, it'll make it much less likely that any of them will come down here. So you can probably get out moderately easy-ish.'

'Easy-ish?' someone muttered.

'Look, my uncle's out there right now, using fury spells on marsh animals so that they attack the Dunmer out in the courtyard. That's the distraction.' Jeerala gestured towards the stairs that led into the open. 'I'm going to go and get Pebbles. If my uncle turns up, with his distraction, then you know to just run. Oh, and if someone pulls the lever to open the floodgates, you can swim out part of the way.'

'This is ridiculous!' A brown-scaled woman pushed through the others, her eyes narrowed – in anger or fear or both, Jeerala couldn't tell and didn't want to guess. 'You think that after everything we've been through we're just going to trust some scrawny teenager who says we should put all our lives, the lives of our families, into her and her uncle? And spellcasters, too! Just like the people who've been imprisoning us!'

'Except she's not a Dark Elf, Jussacca.' The man with the crest gave a small shrug. 'She's our own kind. That means I'm willing to trust her. Besides, what have we got to lose? I'm going with her – if you are.'

He addressed this last part to the green-scaled man with the orange chin, who placed his hands on the crested one's arms. 'You know I'll be with you whatever happens.'

Both men turned to face Jeerala, and the crested man dipped his head. 'I'm Storm-Thrown-Water. Call me Storm. This is my husband, Holds-The-Line, just Line for short. And whoever you are and whatever you lead us into, we're behind you. I just hope you know what you're doing.'

Grey-Rain stepped forwards, ushering his wife and daughter along with him. 'We're willing to put our faith in you too. It's this, or never see the sun again. I'm going to watch Colours-Of-Dawn grow up in freedom. That's what I choose, even if it kills me. What do the rest of you choose?'

What followed was a series of murmurings, nods, shrugs and hurried debates. Jeerala quickly found that if she tried to focus on one conversation, she missed the others, so in the end she just waited until the voices faded away and said, 'OK. Is anyone going to stay here to be experimented on?'

Silence.

'I'll take that as no. Good for you. Look, I don't know how much longer Uncle Ushara's going to be, so I'm going to get Pebbles now.'

'Not alone, you're not.' Line folded his arms. 'I know I'm unarmed, but I can be of some help to you. Keep lookout, maybe.'

'And me.' Storm dipped his head. 'I've wasted away a fair amount down here, but I can still kick an elf's ribs in, if I'm pushed.'

'Great.' Jeerala grinned at them both. 'Did you get your name from battle skill, or something? You always hold the line, never surrender?'

Line chuckled. 'No, afraid not. I'm just good at keeping the line steady when I'm fishing.'

Jeerala shrugged. 'Well, if we find any weapons, at least you'll hold them properly. Anyway.' She turned back to the others. 'Grey-Rain, you seem mostly sensible, so you're in charge. Basically, if you hear a lot of yelling from outside, it'll mean my uncle's turned up, so then you know to run. Don't wait for me and Storm and Line. We'll follow if we can.'

'We have to run out through a courtyard filled with mages and wild beasts?' Kavesa's eyes were huge.

'It'll be OK,' Jeerala said hurriedly. 'My uncle will help, and he's a great mage. It'll be as easy as somnambulating!'

Twelve blank eyes blinked at her.

Jeerala huffed. Did _nobody_ read? 'Easy as sleepwalking.'

'It probably won't be. But we'll just have to trust your uncle.' Grey-Rain ran a hand through his feathers. 'Vasheeka, you're probably the fastest of us. Think you could get the floodgates open?'

A grey-scaled woman with dark crimson feathers gave a slow, careful nod. 'I'll see it done.'

'Then we're all set, I guess.' Jeerala clasped her hands together. This was usually the point where the hero said something incredible dramatic and inspiring, and even if she wasn't the hero, she felt like she had some kind of duty to attempt the same – but nothing came to her mind but, 'OK, I'm, um… I'm going to go and rescue Pebbles. Let's go!'

There was a short silence. Then a ripple of shrugs passed through the watchers, and Storm gestured for her to take the lead.

'Keep an eye on that guy,' she called over her shoulder, pointing towards the Dunmer as she headed up the steps. 'He'll probably wake up at some point. If he does, just knock him out again.'

'Can do,' one of the remaining men chuckled, and Grey-Rain's daughter giggled behind her hands. The sound brought a grin to Jeerala's face. No matter how difficult this situation might be, it wasn't so bad that it could stop a child from laughing.

She was relieved that neither Storm nor Line tried to take the lead as they emerged into the hall. She had no idea whether it was because they were unarmed or because they were in too much of a weakened state that they weren't challenging her attempt at authority, but it was definitely a good thing – she wasn't sure why, but she felt like it was important for her to stay in charge here. These two grown men probably weren't used to letting a seventeen-year-old girl take command of them, but then again, she had a feeling she'd latch on to the first person who offered her a way out of imprisonment of this kind, even if they were a rather unlikely saviour.

'Venryth carries out his experiments in a chamber on the third floor,' Storm explained, indicating the way towards one of the corridors that led off the main room of the temple. 'At least half usually go with him.'

'So, we'll be dealing with around five.' Jeerala lit a candlelight spell as they entered the corridor, watching as the tiny star-like orb drifted up to hover above her head. 'That should be… tricky.'

'You can use magic,' Line said. 'You can take out five, can't you?'

'I've never killed anyone before.' The very thought made Jeerala's throat run dry. 'And I don't want to kill anyone.'

'If you want to save your friend, I think you're going to have to.' Storm's voice was firm, but not unsympathetic. 'Unless you can use the paralysing spells that they have.'

'No. Sorry.'

'And there's no spells you know that could knock them out?'

'No. Sorry.'

'And none that could make conveniently-placed chandeliers or something fall from the ceilings and get them on the heads?'

'No. Sorry.' Jeerala frowned. 'Though that would be useful.'

'You're telling me.' Line lifted and lowered one shoulder. 'But if that's the case, you're probably going to have to kill someone. If you want to save your friend.'

'I _know.'_ Jeerala closed her eyes – the Gods would understand her killing someone as bad as these mages, wouldn't they? If she was trying to rescue someone as good as Pebbles? And it wouldn't be her fault, if they didn't give her any other choice, and if it meant there was less chance of anyone else getting hurt…

She breathed in deeply and pressed on. If she had to kill someone, she'd do it. Only if there was no other way.

 _It's for Pebbles,_ she told herself, taking the steps that led upwards two at a time. _It's for my friend Pebbles, who's going to do much better things with his life than these mages will if they live. If it happens, it'll be for Pebbles._

The third floor of the temple consisted only of dead-straight passages leading up and down the corridor, creating one long, endless, square-shaped corridor. Jeerala extinguished her candelight spell with a quick clenching of her fingers; there was no need for the extra light here. The mages had lit torches, positioned in tall metal holders that had been placed within alcoves dotted at intervals along the walls. Here and there, empty doorways led into small chambers. Quick glances inside told Jeerala that they were empty, but Holds-The-Line beckoned her towards a larger entrance – one through which she could hear the murmur of voices. Jeerala placed her finger over the end of her snout, gesturing for her companions to be quiet.

'Give us more light, Drivya.' The voice was strident, yet somehow boyish – not the kind of voice that Jeerala would have expected a deranged kidnapping mage to have. 'And the rest of you, move back a bit. This sort of thing requires space.'

Jeerala inched a little closer.

'It'll be over much quicker if you just cooperate,' the speaker continued, after a brief pause filled with the sound of shuffling footsteps. 'I already told you, we don't plan on killing you. You're too valuable to us.'

A short silence, a sharp sound of the kind that Jeerala guessed skin made when it slapped against scales, and a shrill yelp of pain. Jeerala's insides twisted into a knot. _That's Pebbles._

'If you don't do as we ask, we're going to be here a long time,' another voice hissed – this one a woman's, and far more menacing than that of the man. 'And we don't need you in one piece.'

'I say we cut start cutting pieces off,' a third voice grunted. 'He doesn't need his tail to cast spells.'

Jeerala blinked, frowned, and ran the sentence through her head, checking that she'd heard it properly. She glanced at Line and Storm, and saw her own bafflement reflected in their faces. 'Pebbles can't cast spells,' she whispered to them.

'I can't help you.' Jeerala would have recognised Pebbles's voice anywhere, but the weakness of it, the way it shook, was so unfamiliar that it made a shudder run through her. 'I don't know what you're trying to get out of this, but I can't help you.'

'You mean you're refusing to help.' There was a pause after the woman spoke, then another yelp. 'And that's something you'll regret, unless – '

'Hold on, Drivya.' It was the first speaker, the man. 'I think maybe we've made a mistake here. He's saying he can't help us. Perhaps he's right. Maybe he's not the one.'

 _The one?_

'Gedris,' the male voice continued. 'You're the one who overheard the scale-skins in the marketplace. What exactly did they say?'

'I've told you everything I know, Venryth,' a fourth voice said shortly. 'They were talking about magic items, and that no one in these parts was interested in buying them, except for 'that teenager from Hejal.' That's all.'

"That teenager," the first man - the famous Venryth, Jeerala guessed – echoed, his words quiet and musing. 'It's not much to go on, it has to be said. It's highly possible we got the wrong one.'

A short silence, then the unmistakable hiss of a fire spell being ignited. 'Fine. Then we get this one to talk, and he tells us who we really want. Name the mage, boy. Name them.'

Jeerala took a step backwards, as if moving away would help her escape the realisation that had come crashing down on her like a downpour in Rain's Hand. These mages were testing Argonians, examining their potential. They'd heard about a spell-user living in Hejal, and they'd decided to test the Argonian capacity for magic. But they'd captured Pebbles. Pebbles, who had never even glanced at a spell tome in all his life.

It had been a mistake. They hadn't wanted Pebbles; they had wanted her.

She could see from the looks that Line and Storm were giving her that they had realised this too, and she reminded herself that this changed nothing. She still had to save Pebbles. And then another thought occurred to her – that Pebbles had refused to turn her in. Hist only knew what the mages had been doing to him, but he'd gone through it rather than tell them outright that he wasn't a mage and they were looking for her. And now, the silence stretched on and on as he didn't, and still didn't, say the name Jeerala.

Her friend. Her friend Pebbles, as out-of-place and as inexperienced in the ways of the world as she was, was refusing the will of a pack of malevolent mages in order to keep her safe.

And that was what made Jeerala lift her hand, flick a frostbite spell into being around her fingers, and send it shooting forwards towards the nearest torch. The flame was snuffed out in a second, a small plume of smoke rising from the dampened wood, and the corridor was plunged into darkness.

In the dim light that was left, Jeerala turned her gaze to her companions, nodded towards the metal torch holders, and mimed brandishing a weapon. Holds-The-Line was the first to understand, slinking forwards to the alcove with the extinguished torch, removing the useless piece of wood, and lifting the metal pole in both hands. He didn't move quietly, but the sound of his footsteps was muffled by the sudden rising of voices from the room.

'We've lost another torch.'

'They shouldn't go out that fast. Who lit it?'

'I did. Only an hour ago.'

'Well, go and light it again. And do it properly this time.'

Line inched backwards, raising the torch holder above his head. Steps echoed through the corridor; then one of the Dunmer, a sinewy individual with ginger hair scraped back into a bunch behind his head emerged from the room. He took a few steps forward and stopped dead in front of the alcove as he realised that the torch was no only extinguished but gone.

Then Line put a quick end to his confusion by bringing the torch holder down on top of his head.

It would have been hard for the mages to miss the _thwack_ of the metal colliding with the man's skull, not to mention the thud of his fall. Jeerala sucked in a deep breath and conjured a lightning spell into each hand, wishing she had learned how to pool two spells into one the way Ushara could. _He's not here with me now. I just have to do the best I can. Even if it means I have to kill people._

As sharp demands to know what was going on out there came from the direction of the room, Storm hurried over towards another alcove. Grabbing the torch in one hand and its holder in the other, he moved towards the room. Jeerala waited, her breathing quickening, until the next mage emerged.

This one saw the rush of movement as Line brought down the torch holder, raising one hand and sending a ward funnelling out into the air in front of him. 'Prisoners are loose!' he yelled, as the holder collided with his translucent shield of magic, and Jeerala knew that they could not waste time. There could be no hesitation that would give the mages a chance to overwhelm them. If three Argonians, two armed only with unwieldy metal poles and the third a teenage girl with only apprentice-level Destruction skills, were to stand a chance of beating five (well, probably only four now) Dark Elf mages who'd most likely had centuries to practise their magic, they could not afford to give the enemy any chance to gain the upper hand.

She closed her eyes as she released the spells. But she opened them again as she heard them hit. The elf, unable to see her in the darkness, did not turn in time to dodge. They smacked into him from the side, sending him staggering into Line, who shoved him backwards. As two more mages appeared in the doorway, Jeerala lashed out again, hurling another spell right at him. This one swept him off his feet.

There could be no holding back now. Jeerala's brain barely seemed to engage with what she was doing as she charged up another searing fistful of lightning and sent it lancing forward towards the fallen elf. The impact launched him down the corridor at least ten metres. When he stopped moving, he did not rise.

A coldness crept through Jeerala's insides, and she glanced down at her hands. These hands had cast spells before, hundreds of times. They'd speared fish and drawn in nets. But never, never, had they killed anyone. Never had she imagined that they would kill anyone.

She hadn't _wanted_ to kill anyone…

Movement forced her to look back up; more mages were emerging through the doorway. Storm hurled his torch; thought the first elf through the door saw it coming and dodged, the distractions for Line to smash him over the head, sending him crumpling to the ground. The narrow entrance and the darkness gave the mages no chance, Jeerala realised, to see what was waiting for them. Infinitely more powerful this enemy might be, but it was she and her comrades who had the advantage here, if it was just because of a small doorway.

And so she couldn't give them any chance to make it out into the corridor. Again, she cupped her hands around a ball of lightning –

'I wouldn't, if I were you.'

Jeerala lowered her hands. But she did not let the lightning go.

It was the elf whose voice they had heard first, the one called Venryth, the leader of the mages, the cause of all of this. He was shorter than she had expected, but if that made him look any less threatening, its effect was counteracted by the flame-shaped tattoo that covered half his face. As his lips moved, the painted fire seemed to quiver, the inked flames licking at his hairline. And with his hair the black-streaked grey that it was, it looked unnervingly like it had been burned.

Behind him came a woman, her skin pale, her mouth a thin, firm line. In her left hand, she held a bound sword, its edges flickering in and out of sight. Her right arm was clamped around Pebble's neck, and the shifting edge of the ethereal blade was brushing against his throat.

Jeerala met her friend's eyes, and the fear in them shook her to the core.

'Jee,' he whispered. 'You shouldn't have come here.'

Venryth took a step forward, locking his blood-coloured gaze onto Jeerala's. 'Do you understand me?' he said slowly, speaking in the common tongue.

Glowering, Jeerala jerked her head in a defiant nod. 'Perfectly.'

'I'm surprised.' Venryth held up his hands, pressing the tips of his fingers together. 'But then again, maybe I shouldn't be. Anyone who can kill one of my number at such a young age is clearly a prodigy.'

'Thank you,' Jeerala said shortly. 'Now let my friend go.'

'You're not in a position to be making demands.' Venryth shot a sidelong glance at the squirming Pebbles. 'Your friend's life hangs in the balance here.'

'I'd noticed that.' Hist, why wouldn't her voice stop shaking? She was trying to sound strong, as she knew Ushara would. But she was not Ushara.

Venryth advanced another pace towards her, and Line and Storm both withdrew a few steps, positioning themselves on either side of Jeerala. 'Stay back,' Storm hissed.

'Forgive me if I don't find you particularly threatening.' Venryth cast a lazy gaze over the two men, apparently indifferent to the fact that they didn't understand a word he was saying. 'I have four hundred years of magical experience behind me. I've torched your kind to cinders on the battlefields of Morrowind. Two half-starved marsh dwellers don't worry me all that much – even if they are accompanied by an exceptionally talented young girl. How old are you, fifteen? Sixteen?'

'Seventeen!'

'Ah. I apologise. But even a seventeen-year-old girl doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart.'

'I think you're the one they were looking for, Jee,' Pebbles said hoarsely, his eyes fixed on the sword the woman held. 'They kept asking me to cast magic, and I can't do that, you know I can't. But I didn't tell them about you, I didn't want them to find you-'

'Shut up,' the woman snapped, and though Pebbles might not have understood the words, her tone said enough. He jerked his jaws back together and was silent.

'She most certainly is the one we were looking for,' Venryth said, and Jeerala realised that he understood Jel. 'We've learned much from these experiments, but it's one thing testing the average scale-skin. A mage… now, that's something else. There's a lot we could learn from you.'

The woman spoke up again, her voice as thin and terse as her lips. 'Seems we grabbed the wrong teenager from Hejal. Pity we didn't know that it was a girl, though maybe we'd have made the same mistake anyway.'

Jeerala stared at her. 'If that's an insult, it's a stupid one. Calling someone a girl is _not_ an insult. Are you a woman or aren't you?'

'Jeerala.' Holds-The-Line's grip on his makeshift weapon was tightening by the second. 'What are they saying?'

'Nothing very sensible.'

The Dunmer man's eyes flicked between Jeerala's companions. 'You two are unwelcome additions to this equation,' he announced.

Jeerala saw him move, saw the pale blue lights spark into being in each of his hands, saw him curl his lips and bare his teeth like an angered animal as he threw the spells forward. He moved fast, fast as a striking slaughterfish, almost two fast for the eye to follow.

But Jeerala moved fast too.

The ice spikes cut through the air, one headed for Line, one headed for Storm. The corridor was narrow; no room for them to dodge. Jeerala discarded the lightning – didn't let it fly, no way she was going to do anything that might provoke the woman into drawing that blade across Pebbles's throat – and called on a new spell, feeling it build within her, letting it flow into her palms. She lifted both hands, held them up in front of her, closed her eyes and prayed she was strong enough.

Her ward blossomed into the air in front of her. Venryth's spears of ice cannoned into it, jolted backwards, and fell to the ground. White shards cartwheeled out in every direction as they smashed on the stone floor – and one of them, a splinter of ice as long as Jeerala's finger, struck the Dunmer woman in the chest.

It was not a deep wound; though it punched through the robe and pierced the skin, the ice had lost enough momentum by the time it hit to damage only the flesh. But it was enough. On pure reflex, the woman threw her arms outwards. And Pebbles, seeing the sword edge move away from his throat, slammed his head back, smashing his horns into his captor's face.

Everything happened fast then, so fast that Jeerala couldn't think, only react. Pebbles ducked and sprinted forwards. The woman staggered back against the wall, shrieking, her sword dispelling, her hands going up to her blood-streaked face. Venryth froze for a moment, torn between attacking them and going to the aid of the woman. He chose the latter, grasping her arms with his hands, steadying her. Pebbles reached Jeerala. Storm grasped his shoulder and swept him behind them. And the sound of a roar - not a mortal's roar, that of an animal - echoed up from the floors below them.

Ushara. He must have come. Bringing his distraction.

Jeerala looked at the people standing around her, and realised that she had just saved the lives of all three of them.

'I think,' she said, 'we should run.'

And so, with the shrieks of Ushara's frenzied animals ringing through the corridors, and Venryth's firebolts and curses flying after them, Jeerala and Holds-The-Line and Storm-Thrown-Water and Stands-On-Pebbles ran.

* * *

 **A note to all readers: no, I have not actually used Jeerala's, um, unarmed combat tactic on anyone. And no, I do not endorse use of it. Unless you're rescuing your friend from evil kidnappers, of course. Then go right ahead.**

 **Writing magic battles, even on so small a scale as this, is dead fun. So the next chapter will no doubt be equally fun. Hopefully, you will like it too. Thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**I owe everyone who's reading this an apology. With my holidays approaching, I foolishly believed I would be able to fit my exam revision, my 5000-word history essay, and this story into my daily schedule. Obviously, I was wrong, and sadly I knew one of these things would have to be set aside. And because while I think writing is the most important thing in the world, the education system doesn't agree, and I decided the only thing I could do was to take a break from the story until my exams were over. I emerged from the last one just a few hours ago, and got to work right away on finishing this chapter. All I can say is that I loved writing it, despite how long it took - and I hope it was worth the wait.**

* * *

CHAPTER SIX

Whenever the heroes in Jeerala's stories went into battle, it was always a chance for the authors to show off just what they could do. In exquisite detail, the way the light flashed on a blade would be described, the writing letting Jeerala follow every inch of the sword's fall, its angle, its speed. The writing would show her every muscle the hero moved as he or she leaped to the side to evade the strike. The author would tell Jeerala exactly what sound the sword made as it missed the hero and smashed into the earth, and as for the coldness of the mud drops thrown up onto the hero's skin or scales or fur from the sword's collision, well, she would be told all about that too. Everything exact. Everything detailed. Everything beautifully laid out, just begging to be imagined scene by scene and piece by piece. It was wonderful, it was thrilling, and it was complete rubbish.

Real battles, Jeerala was learning fast, were absolutely nothing like that. You didn't have time to put a name to the colour of the spell rushing towards you, you just tried not to get hit by it. You didn't even acknowledge sounds – you heard them, but you didn't think them through, you just tried to work out whether they were the sound of you being attacked, and if they weren't, you dismissed them. There simply was no time to think. She wasn't thinking at all. She was reacting.

And for a girl whose fish-spearing skills were so abominable that she couldn't ever remember having actually responded to the sight of a fish fast enough to stab it… she was doing pretty well. But then, when she used magic, everything just felt natural to her.

Making it back downstairs was easier than she had anticipated. All she really had to do was go backwards, keeping a ward up so that none of Venryth's spells could reach her or her friends. Of course, she was clumsy enough normally, let alone going backwards, and more than once she tripped. But Line and Storm made sure they were right behind her – or in front of her, rather – and whenever she stumbled, she only fell a short way into their backs. They would quickly spin around, push her back upright, and keep going. Not once did Jeerala let her ward falter. She was finding a strength inside her that she had simply never touched before. Whether it was anger or just pure determination she wasn't sure, but it was allowing her to use magic more powerfully and for longer periods than she'd even known was possible.

Things quickly become rather more complicated, however, once they arrived in the main chamber of the Xinio'al temple. Ushara had outdone himself on his distraction – the entire place was crowded with animals. Hackwings circled in the hole that the Hist tree had once grown through, their wheeling in the air occasionally breaking off as they dived down in the direction of the fleeing mages – one was already lying prone on the floor with a hackwing perched on his shoulders. Jeerala looked away the instant she saw the blood coating his robes, a shudder running through her body. Hackwings knew better than to try to pierce the scales of Argonians, but a Dunmer with nothing but that soft grey skin was as defenceless as a Khajiit kitten thrown into a waterfall.

Nearby, a marsh cat with paws the size of soup bowls was chasing down another of the elves. The Dunmer was holding it back with bursts of fire from his hands, but his distraction meant that Jeerala and her group could simply run right past him and into the corridor leading to the entrance.

'Your uncle's one Oblivion of a mage,' Line panted, as they neared the square of light at the end of the passage.

'So's Jeerala,' Pebbles pointed out.

'Uncle Ushara's had decades more to practise this kind of thing.' Jeerala shrugged. 'He'd wipe the floor with me any day.'

'Well, let's hope he can wipe the floor with Venryth, too.' Storm's eyes were grim. 'Because that bastard's still on our heels.'

As if to underline his point, a lightning spell lanced down the length of the corridor, missing Pebbles by a feather's length. Jeerala whirled around and raised her ward again. 'Keep going!' she yelled.

'The thought had occurred to us!' Storm shouted back.

Venryth was charging towards her with his head down and his hands moving fast as a raft in rapids, hurling spells at her with vicious relentlessness. Jeerala quickened her backwards-running, praying that her ward would last out the length of the corridor. Her foot caught her tail and the collision sent her sprawling onto her back, but hands grasped her shoulders and yanked her the final distance, out of the temple, around a corner, and into safety behind the temple wall.

Jeerala pushed herself upright, nodded her thanks to Line as he let her go, and swept her gaze over the temple courtyard. 'Well, this is going to be… interesting.'

To say that the scene in front of her was chaotic would have been the understatement of the era. The courtyard was heaving with movement. The floodgates had been opened, and the canals were steadily filling with water – not deep enough yet to be swum in, but it wouldn't be long before they were full. Ahead of them, the freed prisoners were scurrying between cover in groups, hiding behind statues and pillars or inside the canals to evade both the rampaging animals that thronged the courtyard, and the handful of remaining mages. The beasts, naturally, were attacking indiscriminately – a fury spell didn't differentiate between the caster's friends and foes. But from what Jeerala could see, the prisoners were more than willing to stand up for themselves. Pots, pans, buckets, stones and pieces of wood from the fire were hurled at any animal that got close – a couple of the hostages seemed to have found knives somewhere. And if the situation looked desperate, then Ushara stepped in. Because there he was, standing alongside the prisoners, looking every inch the hero.

Any animal that came diving or racing towards the ragtag bunch of Argonians he protected, he sent tumbling back on the crest of a whirling blizzard of ice magic. If they dodged, a wave of Ushara's hand would bring up a wall of ice from the ground, jagged white teeth pointing outwards at the attacker, blocking its path. If the enemy was airborne, a ward could be raised over the entire group with one hand, while the other sent out another spell to knock the predator back. And if one of the mages was foolish enough to approach, a flick of Ushara's fingers would call a storm atronach forth to bar their way.

He was too far away for Jeerala to see his face, but she knew that his eyes lit up when he turned his head and saw her. His arm waved, beckoning her forwards, towards where he and the prisoners around him sheltered behind a low wall. Jeerala breathed in deeply and leaped to her feet. Venryth would be emerging from the corridor at any second – she, Pebbles, Line and Storm had to get moving.

'The canals!' she shouted, making a sprint for the nearest one. She threw herself over the edge and into the knee-deep water just in time to drop out of the way of a firebolt aimed at her head. Spinning back around, she stretched her arms out over the rim of the canal and lifted a ward again, shielding her group for the few seconds it took for them to reach her and drop down after her. The shoulder-high walls would keep them shielded now, as long as they kept their heads down. All they had to do was run, and keep an eye out for danger.

Members of any other race would have been slowed by the steadily-deepening water, but Jeerala and her comrades had been wading for as long as they could walk. They splashed through the canal at full speed, keeping their heads below the rim, occasionally looking up to check that they were moving in the right direction. A turn to the left, one to the right, then back to the left again, and they were drawing up beside another group of escapees. One was the grey-scaled, red-feathered woman who had been responsible for opening the canals, another a brown-scaled man whose pale facial scales betrayed his age, a third a man Jeerala hadn't yet seen speak, white-scaled with brown flecks, his head a spiked nest of horns, and the last a pink-scaled woman, her face freckled with darker spots, a white cloth dangling down the back of her neck from two wooden clasps, one attached to each horn.

'What's the hold-up?' Storm demanded, as he drew level with them.

'We stayed back to help Leaps-The-Roots,' the pink-scaled woman explained. 'He can't run so fast. And Vasheeka had to go on that detour to open the floodgates.'

'No, I mean, why aren't you pressing on? We've got Venryth and Drivya after us.'

The elderly man – Jeerala guessed he was Leaps-The-Roots – let out a hoarse, wordless cry and grasped at the white-scaled man's arm.

'It's OK, Roots,' the man said; his voice was gentle, but the tremor in it told Jeerala that he was nowhere near as confident as he pretended to be. 'We won't let them hurt you again.'

'We've got another mage up ahead of us,' Vasheeka explained. 'He's got some kind of ice monster blocking the canal. If we go around the corner, it comes right for us.'

Jeerala shook her head. 'Not an ice monster. It's a frost atronach. And I can deal with it.'

Vasheeka gave her a slightly pitying look, and Line chuckled. 'It's a bad idea to underestimate this girl, Vasheeka. She saved all our lives from Venryth a moment ago, and I daresay that if she thinks she can take out this… this atronach, then she can.'

'What about Venryth?' The white-scaled man glanced back in the direction of the temple. 'If it takes too long to get past the atronach, he'll have us.'

'I wouldn't worry, Kree-Lim.' Storm had poked his head over the lip of the trench; now he withdrew it, a smirk stamped on his features. 'He and Drivya are being delayed. By two hackwings and a very determined mud serpent.'

'Then let's get moving.' Jeerala exchanged the ward enchantments flickering around her fingers for firebolts. 'I'll take this thing down. From what I've read, ice atronachs are inflammable. Or flammable. Doesn't matter which.'

Kree-Lim frowned. 'I should think it's a pretty big difference.'

'It's no difference at all. It's a common misapprehension that _inflammable_ means 'not capable of burning,' when in fact it means the exact same as flammable. Because of poor translations to Jel from Cyrodiilic, since inflammable actually derives from the common tongue word _inflame,_ it was misinterpreted on translation as meaning –'

'Jee!' Pebbles shouted. 'This is interesting, but we really don't have time for a language lesson!'

'Right. Sorry,' Jeerala said, and raced around the corner.

She saw instantly that her guess had been right. She'd never seen a frost atronach in the flesh before – or in the ice, rather, but she'd seen illustrations, and she'd listened to Ushara's stories. There was nothing else this could be. It was a fair bit larger than she'd anticipated, but maybe that would give her the advantage in this case. She'd been wondering why it hadn't already charged around the corner and attacked the group – the answer, it appeared, was that it was firmly wedged inside the canal, shards of ice flaking off its sides as it strove to move forwards.

'Having trouble?' Jeerala asked, launching the fiery contents of her hands towards its chest.

The firebolts struck dead centre, each one tearing a whole the size of Jeerala's head through the atronach's chest. It tried to reel back, and succeeded only in shearing a little more ice off its sides. Letting out a shrill hissing sound, it slammed both clublike fists down onto the ground in front of it. A shower of ice shot forth from the place its hands hit – a cascade of miniature spears that Jeerala only just blocked, her ward flickering into existence a heartbeat before the icicles struck. Keeping her ward raised, Jeerala hurled another firebolt. This one smacked into the atronach's neck with so much force that its entire body jerked backwards. An entire sheet of ice fell from its right side, and without this extra breadth, the atronach was finally free to move. Its footsteps sent the ground beneath Jeerala's feet into tremors, ripples speeding across the water around her as the creature lumbered forwards.

 _Stay calm,_ Jeerala told herself firmly, and took a few steps backwards. She needed more power behind her shots – and there was a way, though she'd never tried it before…

She lowered her ward, exchanging that spell for another firebolt, and brought her hands close together. The two handheld flames flickered, and the atronach's advance continued. Jeerala reached for the magicka within her, calling every last spark of it up and into her palms. _Please work. Please work, please just work…_

The flames spat; then with a burst of light, they rushed inwards, colliding with each other. Many times she had seen Ushara do this – overcharging, he called it – but never had she managed it herself. But in the heat of this battle, with no time to do think, only to react, anything seemed possible. Now Jeerala's hands were cupped around one blazing ball of Destruction magic, its heat sending warmth flowing through the skin beneath her scales, the energy within it trembling to be released.

And Jeerala released it. Her first dual-cast spell seared through the air and collided with the atronach's head. There was a burst of white and red, a hiss of steam, and then the atronach was crunching to the ground, a broken collection of ice chunks.

'Atronach down!' Jeerala shouted over her shoulder. 'We're good to go!'

The group came pounding around the corner, Kree-Lim supporting Roots, Line and Storm still gripping their torch-holders. A grin spread across Pebbles's face as he caught sight of the shattered remains of the atronach. 'Nice one!'

'It was pretty cool.' Jeerala lifted her hands, showing him the fire still licking at her fingers. 'I cast my first overcharged spell!'

'Fascinating. Now let's keep moving.' Storm hurried forwards, hurdling the atronach-chunks and sticking his head around the next bend. 'That mage is still up ahead, but it looks like your uncle's distracting him, Jeerala.'

'I told you he was good.' Jeerala ran to take the lead. 'If we can just get over to him, we should be OK. Mind you, we'd better move fast, because we might not have much time before these fury spells run out, and once the animals are out of the picture, we've lost our distraction, and that'd be bad because it'll make it much easier for the mages to block our way to the bridge. Mind you, these canals are going to be full soon, so if we just swim out we'll move a lot faster than –'

Vasheeka let out a _tsk_ sound. 'Less talking, more escaping.'

'Here.' The pink-scaled woman – Kree-Lim's wife, Jeerala guessed – bent down and picked up one of the ice spears that Jeerala's ward had turned aside. 'These could make do for weapons, in a pinch.'

'We're in a pinch all right.' Line grabbed Storm's shoulder and pushed him forwards. 'Venryth and Drivya have dealt with the animals. They're coming. Let's move.'

Jeerala didn't need telling twice. The water, now up to just below her chest, was becoming a hindrance, and it would remain so until it advanced the few inches more needed for it to become deep enough to swim in. Pebbles ran up beside her, offering her his arm to hang onto as they pushed through. Jeerala smiled her thanks; if she tripped, which was more than likely, she being the way she was, she didn't want to crash into the group behind her.

Storm risked another look over the edge of the canal. 'The others are just up ahead. Jeerala, can you get that magic shield thing up so we can climb out?'

'It's called a ward.' Jeerala conjured it, lifting it just above the canal rim. 'But sure, I can do that. Can you make it over to Uncle Ushara from here?'

'I'll go first.' Vasheeka grasped the edge of the canal, ready to haul herself up. 'If I'm not fast enough to make it, none of you will be.'

She scrambled up and over the edge, keeping her limbs and tail close to her body so that they stayed behind Jeerala's shield. A lightning bolt collided with the ward, no doubt a present from Venryth, but Jeerala gritted her teeth and willed the shield to stay up. Vasheeka hesitated a moment, her head turning from side to side as she judged the distance, judged the dangers – then she shot forward like an arrow from a bow, her legs moving so fast that they were a blur of grey. Within a few seconds, she was ducking behind the wall that sheltered Ushara and the others.

Jeerala saw her uncle turn towards Vasheeka, exchange a few words with her, then leap out from his cover, raising a ward of his own. 'Everyone go!' he roared. 'I'll keep the elves off you!'

'You heard the man!' Storm grabbed the edge; Line dashed over to give him a boost over. As Storm readied himself for the run, Ushara raced out into the centre of the courtyard, a storm atronach at his side and a lightning spell crackling between his hands. Venryth and the elf woman moved to stand together, atronachs of their own sparking into existence just behind them. Jeerala swallowed hard.

'Come on, Roots. Your turn.' Kree-Lim was ushering the aged Argonian over. 'Leru-La and I will help you up. There's nothing to it.'

A shudder ran through Roots's body. 'It's not the climb that frightens me.'

'Jeerala's uncle seems to have Venryth distracted for now. You just have to go. I'll run with you, if you like.'

'I'm thirty years older than you!' Roots snapped at him, and clambered, with a great deal of difficulty, and absolutely no grace, up and out of the canal.

One by one, the escapers hauled themselves up and made the run to the wall. Line lingered behind to help Jeerala up; she had to lower her ward to climb, but Line positioned himself between her and Venryth's line of sight, shielding her with his own body. Not that it was necessary, Jeerala realised, as she steadied herself on reaching the top and peered past Line's shoulder. Both Venryth and Drivya were focusing on Ushara, whose wards and rapid movements seemed to be keeping him out of trouble – for now.

'Come on, Jeerala.' Line grasped her arm. 'You can't help him, it's too dangerous. We need to move.'

Jeerala tore her gaze away from her uncle's battle. 'Right. Let's go.'

As she raced across the open space, the only thought that could register in her mind was _I'm exposed, I'm exposed, I'm completely exposed._ Yet there was no flash of flame, no crack of lightning, no hiss of ice. She reached the wall only a few seconds after Line and threw herself over it.

'Good to see you all!' Grey-Rain, huddling further down, lifted one hand and sent a shaky wave in Jeerala's direction.

'Why are you all still here?' Line demanded. 'This might be our only chance to get out.'

'We wanted to make sure everyone was safe.' Grey-Rain shrugged. 'Besides, our distraction's gone, had you noticed?'

Jeerala flicked her eyes from side to side, and gritted her teeth in worry. The only animals present now were strewn, lifeless, across the grey stones; a few hackwings circled above, but too far away to be of any danger or any use. 'Uncle Ushara's fury spells must have run out of time.'

'He's holding Venryth off just fine, though,' Grey-Rain's wife remarked, taking a glance over the wall. 'I think we should take this chance to get the children out of here before Drivya shows up again.'

'Again?' Jeerala blinked at her. 'Drivya's right back there, fighting my uncle.'

Pebbles lifted his head over the wall, looked out for a moment, then ducked back down. 'She isn't. She's gone.'

Storm let out a hiss, pressing a hand against his face. 'Hist. This can't be good.'

With a grunt, Grey-Rain grasped hold of a chunk of stone he appeared to be using as a weapon. 'Kavesa's right. We have to get the children out. Maybe some of us can stay back here and see if we can help Ushara, but for now – '

The lightning bolt slammed out of thin air and struck him in the neck.

Grey-Rain flew backwards, the movement sharp as the tug of a fish on a line, and slammed into the wall. There was a dull thump, and he seemed to hang in the air for a second, as if pinned to the stone by an invisible spear. Then he slid down it, crumpled at its base, and did not move.

' _Rain!'_ Kavesa's scream was a sound of the kind that Jeerala had never heard an adult make, had never heard anyone make – a sound that made something break inside her heart. And the wail that followed, as Grey-Rain's daughter dropped to her knees at his side, her disbelief streaming from her in a long, wordless cry, was what told Jeerala that the man was dead. Because no father could hear a sound like that coming from his daughter and not open his eyes, not put his arms around her, not murmur to her that everything was going to be all right.

Jeerala spun around, lightning crackling between her fingers. Something inside her was beginning to night was falling fast now, but Jeerala felt hot, hot all over, as if her blood had been replaced with liquid flame. For the first time, she noticed just how thin the people around her were, how closely their skin stuck to their bones, how lustreless their scale and feather colours were. She looked at the children – the youngest, clinging tight to the arm of his mother, could not be more than six. His eyes were wide, and filled with a fear that should never be placed in the eyes of a child. She looked at weathered old Leaps-The-Roots, breathing hard as he leaned against the wall, and realised that where his jacket hung open, she could see the scars from the incisions the mages had made, when they'd decided to study his physiology. She looked over her shoulder at where Ushara was duelling Drivya. Her uncle, her beloved uncle, fighting for his life. She looked at Pebbles, her best friend, who had been kidnapped, dragged through the marsh by a wamasu, taken off to be interrogated.

She listened to the sobs of Colours-Of-Dawn, as she pressed her face into her father's still side.

These mages were evil. And that made Jeerala… _angry._

She strode forwards, her lightning spell overcharged and crackling to be released. 'Drivya! Stop hiding and come and fight properly, you evil, murdering, dry-skin lunatic!'

There was a moment where nothing happened, except for the continued howls of Grey-Rain's family. Then the air ahead of Jeerala, a few hundred metres away, flickered, and the colours of the courtyard and the sky distorted, revealing the figure of a woman. Robe-clad, grey-skinned, her eyes like chips of blood-coloured stone.

'The aspiring mage.' Drivya held her hands out in front of her, as if to show off the fierceness and the brightness of the flames pooling in her hands. 'Please, just surrender. Let us study your magical talent. I might even let a few of your friends here escape. One or two. The children.'

'The children who'd die trying to get home?' Jeerala snapped. 'I'm not stupid. Mostly. And I'm surrendering. I'm challenging you.'

'So I see. Do you really think it's a good idea?'

'Nope.' Jeerala took a step towards her. 'But to be honest, I'm so angry right now I'm not really listening to myself.'

Drivya inclined her head slightly, apparently approving of this. 'That's the kind of courage your ancestors showed when they ransacked my homeland, girl.'

'I really don't think so. They had strategy. I'm just really, really angry.'

'Then let's see how well you can use that anger,' Drivya retorted, and launched her spells.

Jeerala acted, again, on pure instinct. She'd never known that it was possible to discharge a spell, to release it, while at the same time readying a new one. But apparently it was, because even as she lifted her ward, she let her lightning fly. The second her ward was up, Drivya's fire hit her.

She wasn't prepared – nothing could have prepared her – for the sheer force of the collision. The spells were clearly master-level, or even higher, if there was anything higher, which Jeerala doubted. Powerful enough to break her ward, though not break through it, and push her back three paces. But her ward, while it had lowered, had soaked up the damage. She wasn't sure whether the heat she was now feeling was because she'd been burned or because she was still being fuelled by that weird rage or both – and she found it hard to care.

She blinked the glow from the fireball from her eyes, and locked her gaze back on Drivya. The elf woman, she realised, was also recovering from a stagger. A patch of her robe, over her right shoulder, was smoking.

 _I hit her,_ Jeerala realised. _She never expected me to hit her. She didn't raise a ward. I actually hit her!_

'You're stronger than I expected,' Drivya hissed. 'It won't do you any good.'

She lifted her hand, and Jeerala saw the spark of gold begin to weave around her fingers. She was going to heal herself – and Jeerala couldn't let her. She called on her magicka again, and launched another lightning bolt.

This time, Drivya did raise a ward, one-handed. She kept the healing spell hovering over her shoulder, so Jeerala kept firing. Again and again, she launched the lightning bolts. She'd read a thousand times that the more spells you cast, the weaker your ability to cast would become as your reserves of magicka ran dry. But instinct told her that she could keep going, that she had a while to go before she had to stop casting. So she kept casting. Again and again, because she _would_ break that ward, she would force Drivya to stop healing herself, she would stop this evil, evil woman from blocking their path to escape.

She launched another lightning bolt. Even from a distance, she saw Drivya's face contort with tension as the purple river of energy collided with the ward, and she spotted the tremor run through the elf's shield that meant it was giving way. The golden glow vanished from her hand as she lifted it away from her shoulder, her fingers flexing around a crackling ball of purple and white. _She's afraid of me,_ Jeerala realised, with a feeling that seemed to be worryingly… nice. _If she's using lightning, she's taking me seriously, because lightning saps the magicka as it hits, so it's what you use against other mages._

She guessed that Drivya had been using fire before because she hadn't expected her to be able to actually put up a fight. That was understandable. Jeerala hadn't expected herself to be able to put up a fight, either.

She fired another spell. How _was_ she putting up a fight? She shouldn't even be able to shudder Drivya's wards. Her enemy was an elf with centuries of practice. She was seventeen. But she was so angry. And she wanted so badly for everyone to escape. She wanted it so much that for it to not happen seemed impossible.

Drivya let loose her own spell, and Jeerala raised a ward to block it. One-handed. And offhandedly. That same instinct that told her that her magicka reserves would hold out told her that she didn't need to bolster the ward with both hands, nor to focus on it. And indeed, Drivya's lightning hit the ward and was soaked up inside it. The ward barely wavered. Jeerala had a feeling she was running off pure anger now, and it was working, working frighteningly well. It was as if something ancient had awakened inside her. Some kind of fierce new being. Both herself, and… not. Something older. Something more. Something infinitely more powerful.

The blood was roaring in her ears, the anger was thick and strong, and the concept of fear seemed to have become a vague memory, a word without meaning. Drivya's ward was shaking like a clump of reeds in a strong current. Jeerala narrowed her eyes, and focused everything she had on that trembling circle of blue. She deflected another lightning bolt, called on all the strength she had, and directed it towards the ward. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to see that translucent shield gone. More than that – she wanted it destroyed. _Destroyed._

She cast her spell. Except they were no longer lightning spells. Even as she curled her fingers to cast, the light in her hands changed, changed without her thinking of doing so, changed without her bidding. The purple glow vanished, and a fierce orange took its place. And what she sent towards her enemy was fire.

And it was that fire that struck the final blow. It was too much raw power for Drivya's shuddering ward. The fire hit, the fire burned, and with a hiss and a roar it shattered the shield of magic. Drivya staggered back from the impact, shaking hair from her eyes and blinking rapidly. She looked up, and her eyes met Jeerala's. There was fear in them.

'You're only a –'

She never finished. Because Jeerala's hand moved. She saw it moving, and some part of her mind screamed at it to stop, but her muscles didn't seem to hear in time. The spell flew.

The firebolt crashed into Drivya with the force of a charging wamasu, sending her robes, her hair, her skin, up in flames, and scorching the life from her. She fell to the ground and lay without moving on the ash-coated stone.

Jeerala's hands dropped to her side. Suddenly, the anger was gone. What was left was the emotion that she knew had filled Drivya's last moments: fear. And just like Drivya, she was afraid of _her._ She'd killed her, killed her enemy, without meaning to, without wanting to, as if some other, darker version of Jeerala had taken her over.

But she knew that couldn't be true. That anger had come from her, from Jeerala and no one else. It had always been in her and it always would be. She was capable of this, she was capable of losing control, and she was scared. So scared.

From behind her, she heard the sound of cheering. She was almost afraid to turn, but she did. The prisoners' smiles were so wide they seemed to be bursting off their faces. Line and Storm were clenching their fists in triumph. Kavesa's face was one of grim satisfaction, clear even through her tears. Leaps-The-Roots was even clapping. Only Pebbles seemed to share any of the shock that she felt.

 _Don't celebrate this,_ Jeerala pleaded with them silently. _I'm just as bad as she is. Was._

Oh, Hist, _was._ Drivya _was._ She would never have _is_ attached to any sentence involving her again, because she was something gone and dead and utterly destroyed. In fact, it was even worse than that, because it wasn't just that she was a _was,_ a thing of the past. Drivya was not.

'Keep moving!' It was Line who finally broke the moment, who forced time to keep moving again. 'Let's get over the bridge and get out!'

The others didn't seem to need telling twice. Vasheeka raced forwards, Leaps-The-Roots stumbling at her side. Kavesa blinked back tears and lifted her husband's shoulders off the ground. Kree-Lim came forwards to help her, collecting up his feet. Together, they carried him away from the place where he had died, with little Colours-Of-Dawn still crying as she followed after. Some of them grinned at Jeerala as they went past, and Roots stopped to deal what was left of Drivya a hefty kick. Jeerala swallowed hard and looked at the ground. And then Pebbles was there.

'Jee?' he said quietly.

'I killed her.'

'Yeah. I guess you did. But she would have killed us if you hadn't. And anyway, your uncle needs help.'

That was what did it. The word _uncle_ was all it took to snap her into reality. Jeerala sucked in air and re-ignited her spells again. She chose ice this time. She wasn't sure she trusted fire any more.

'I'm going to help him,' she said. He was still there, duelling Venryth in the centre of the courtyard. 'Don't wait for us. Just help everyone get back to Hejal, it's the nearest place if I remember the map right, and… tell everyone I love them, except maybe Ireethra, I just kind of put up with her, and… yeah.'

Pebbles shook his head. 'Jee. We can't just leave you here…'

'Venryth would try to use you to get to us. My uncle and I can fight. You and the others can't. You don't have weapons. You'd die.' She shook her head. 'Just go, Pebbles. Please just go.'

He looked at her for a moment more. Then he said, 'You'd better live,' and sprinted away after the others.

Jeerala looked back at the place where her uncle stood locked in combat with Venryth. They were near the edge of one of the canals. Very near. She looked from the water, to her uncle, to the elf, to the blackened mass that had once been a Dunmer woman called Drivya, Drivya who had been married to Venryth, and knew that she could win this fight with two words.

She looked down at the ice in her hands, swapped it for lightning, and walked forwards. Things seemed oddly calm now, almost unreal. If this were one of her books, she would challenge Venryth now, and fight him to the death, but this was life. If what she was planning worked, it would work quickly.

She kept walking, until Venryth caught sight of her and flicked his gaze towards her. His eyes narrowed, and he turned a hand towards her, but before he could cast, Jeerala spoke.

'Drivya's dead,' she said.

Two words. And they were enough. Venryth's face froze, every muscle in it going still. Jeerala gestured over her shoulder at the dead elf, just so he knew that it was true, that his wife was gone for ever, that his wife was not. And as he stared, the realisation swamping everything in his mind, Jeerala ran forwards.

She lowered her head and charged him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ushara flick his spells away and do the same. Hadn't they always been on the same page, the two of them, always understood each other? Now, Ushara understood, just when he needed to, and again, it was enough.

The combined force of them both hitting was too much for Venryth, still and shaken as he was. There was nothing he could have done to stop himself from toppling backwards into the canal. The water seemed to stir him awake, and he was thrashing, kicking out for the edge, his eyes burning with hatred.

His hand clasped the edge. But he had no time to pull himself up, because Ushara and Jeerala directed their hands towards the water and sent their lightning spells shooting from their hands. There was a blast of purple and white light, and a sound that might have been a scream or might have been Jeerala's imagination, as the current from their spells ran right through the water and into the elf who floundered in it.

Jeerala turned away. She didn't want to look. She didn't want to see him bounce to the surface, face down and still, floating like a child's toy boat. She didn't want to see another dead person. She didn't want to see anything. It was over, they'd done what they'd come here to do, but too much had happened, and Hist, she felt so _young –_

Ushara's arms were around her, suddenly, and she pressed her face against his chest and let the tears come.

'Everything will be all right, Jeejee.' His voice was very calm. 'Now. Let's get you home.'

* * *

 **Before anyone shouts 'overpowered!' at Jeerala's actions in this chapter… well, go ahead and shout that. because you're right, but do bear with me. Explanations are incoming, and I think something of an explanation can be spotted with close reading…**

 **I hope the fight against Venryth wasn't too anticlimactic; but really, that was the climax of Ushara's story, and this is Jeerala's tale. Jeerala's confrontation with Drivya was meant to be the most exciting part - so I hope it was.**

 **I invented a few Black Marsh animals here, since not many other than wamasu and rootworms are referenced in-game.**

 **I think that's all the notes I have for this chapter, so wish me luck with the next one. Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

The party that trudged, waded and scrambled its way through the marsh towards Hejal was displaying so many different emotions that it made Jeerala's head hurt to observe them all. There was grief, of course, fierce, crushing grief, emanating in waves from the back of their group, where Kavesa carried the body of her husband. Some of the stronger members of the group were taking it in turns to help her, but she refused to let anyone take her place. Colours-Of-Dawn stumbled on at her mother's side, with one of the other adults occasionally lifting her up onto their shoulders so that her legs wouldn't become as worn out as her tear ducts. It made something inside Jeerala ache to imagine what would follow when Kavesa and Dawn arrived back at their home in Xhu'atl. There would be an empty place at their table, a cold space behind Kavesa when she went to bed. She would go the rest of her life without a warm embrace and a shoulder to rest her head on. And Dawn would never have a father again. Even without being close to her own father, Jeerala knew that to lose him would be painful. Dawn, so young and so pretty, deserved better than this bewildered agony.

Elsewhere among the group, there was a resounding feeling of slightly weary relief. Jussacca's two sons walked along in something of a daze, both too drained by their experience to take any real pleasure in the fact that they were free. Kree-Lim and his wife hovered anxiously around old Leaps-The-Roots, asking frequently if he was all right, and only stopping once he snapped at them that if he wasn't all right, they'd know about it. Line and Storm led the way, pushing aside any bushes or logs that might block the way for the children and occasionally shouting encouraging things over their shoulders, but when Ushara called for a break, they both sank down almost instantly, Storm tucking his arm around Line's shoulders and pulling him close.

But there was happiness, too. When Ushara announced that they were halfway there, Jeerala noticed smiles flit over the faces of their companions, and Roots even rubbed his hands together. When Jussacca's younger son showed signs of breaking out into a tantrum, Ushara distracted him with a technique he'd often used on Jeerala when she'd been younger. The Magelight game, she called it. Distracting the boy's attention by conjuring the glowing ball of light into his palm, Ushara flicked his wrist and sent it floating forwards, until it hit the trunk of a tree and stuck there. Giggling, the boy hurried after it – and the moment he extended a hand to grab it, Ushara conjured another, further away. The sight of the child, with his short, stubby tail and plump legs, running after the orb with hands outstretched and eyes alight was enough to make Jeerala laugh for what felt like the first time in years.

Her amusement didn't last long, though. It was hard to really hold on to any emotions other than the knot of fear tangling her thoughts. No matter what she tried to think to distract herself, her mind kept coming back to the same inescapable fact: she had killed people today, and Drivya, she had killed without meaning to.

It wasn't so much the notion of killing that unsettled her. Yes, she hated the thought, but she'd been prepared to do it. What scared her was that she hadn't wanted to do it. She knew it was possible that her mind had erased parts of the memory to make it more bearable, but she was certain that her hand had acted without her telling it to. That final spell, the fire that had burned Drivya into whatever kind of afterlife the Dunmer believed in (she was sure she'd read about it once, but remembering would require focus, and focus was hard to come by at the present moment in time) had not been a controlled, reasoned action. Some part of her, somehow separate from her mind, had made it happen, and that terrified her.

She knew that Ushara had realised her distress. After all, she was barely speaking, and even her father knew that was a sign that she wasn't feeling normal. But it was not until they were only about ten minutes away from Hejal that he finally turned to her and said, 'Do you want to talk about it?'

Jeerala sucked in a long breath. 'I think so.'

'All right. What part of it's got you shaken up? Is it just that you had to kill her?'

'No.' Jeerala shook her head. 'I… I lost control. It was like my magic was acting through me, doing things without me wanting to do them.'

'I feel like that sometimes, too.' Her uncle kept his voice low and reassuring, and Jeerala felt the familiar pang of pain and incomprehension that always ran through her when she remembered how rarely her father acted like that towards her. 'When you're in the thick of battle, you can't really think, you just react. And your reflexes are working so fast –'

'It wasn't like that. I mean, it was part instinct, but it was…' Jeerala swallowed. 'I just felt so angry. I really, really wanted her dead. And I just don't want that kind of thing, I'm not the kind of person who wants that kind of thing. I mean, I didn't think I was.'

Ushara put his hand on her shoulder. 'When someone's out to kill you, and you're protecting others… that kind of situation has a knack of turning us into people we're not. The older you get, the more used to it you become, the more you'll be able to keep your head. It's not something to be ashamed of, what you did.'

He still didn't get it. Jeerala closed her eyes for a moment. Was there any way to explain?

'I felt like there was something inside me,' she whispered. 'Something that wasn't really me that was making me stronger. I mean… I killed her. With a firebolt. An _apprentice-level_ firebolt. It only took one. And she's a Dunmer! She – she _was_ a Dunmer. They're meant to have natural resistance to fire, right? I shouldn't have been able to do it.' She drew in a quick breath; the words were coming now, thick and fast. 'My wards could hold back her spells, and they shouldn't have been able to. I could break her wards, and I shouldn't have been able to. I was able to go that whole fight without running out of magicka and I shouldn't have been able to. She must have been centuries old, and I'm seventeen, and I barely know any spells and I've not even been doing magic very long and I don't get how I could beat her and it just doesn't make any sense.'

This last sentence came out in a rush, so much so that the final words practically blended into each other. Ushara regarded her for a moment, then nodded slowly.

'I think, Jee, it's as simple as this: you're a very, very powerful mage. Some people are just naturally talented. For whatever reason, you're able to generate larger reserves of magicka, or else you naturally recharge it so quickly that you can recover from losing it quickly. Don't forget that you're wearing more than one enchanted item – that would have helped too.'

'That doesn't explain how I could just forget that I didn't want to kill her.'

He sighed. 'Instinct's a powerful thing. It was your first real battle, you didn't know your own magical strength, and you reacted to the situation. I expect many would have done the same – it's just the person in that situation happened to be you, and your magic was strong enough to kill her. Don't obsess over it, Jee. It doesn't make you a bad person.'

'But I killed her. I _accidentally_ killed her.'

'And the fact that you're finding it hard to cope with that is proof enough that you're a good person. She wouldn't have cared if she'd killed you. You care that you killed her. That says everything that needs saying.'

Jeerala lifted her hands in front of her face and flexed her fingers. Night had truly fallen now, with only Ushara's magelight spells keeping them from stumbling at every step in the dark, and the cold air made her scales cool to the touch. It was strange to remember how, only about an hour ago, these hands had been filled with a fire strong enough and fierce enough to rip a life away from Nirn.

Her hands had cast the spell, but it had been the spell itself that had killed. She balled her hands into fists. How could she ever channel magic through them again, knowing that it could lead to that same loss of control, that same consuming fury? She knew the magic itself wasn't responsible. Magic itself wasn't dangerous – people were dangerous. And because of that rage that had made her lose control, she was dangerous. In her hands, magic would always be dangerous, so how could she ever use it again? The thing she loved, the thing that gave her life meaning… would she have to give it up, to keep the people around her safe?

'What do I do?' The words came out barely louder than whispers.

Ushara gave her another long, careful look. 'With magical power like that, you can't stay here. I don't mean you'll be a danger to your family, before you get the wrong idea. I mean that your kind of magical talent can be put to better use than catching fish.'

For the first time since Drivya had fallen to the ground in a plume of flame, Jeerala felt her spirits lift. 'You mean, I could use it to help people?'

'Of course. I make my living retrieving artefacts, taking them to the mages' guilds and associations for them to study. Occasionally I clear out a cave of bears or a clan of vampires to help a struggling village, but it's mostly dungeon delving. You could do a lot more. There are people like Venryth and his mages all over Tamriel. Some of them are mortals like us, some of them are Daedra, but they all cause harm to people. It takes people like you to stop them.'

Jeerala swallowed. 'I'm not a hero.'

Ushara glanced over his shoulder at the group trailing behind them. 'Try telling them that.'

'You were the one who brought the animals to Xinio'al as a distraction, and you fought Venryth and tracked the wamasu here – '

'But you came up with the plan. You freed the prisoners and rescued Pebbles. You defeated that woman so that she couldn't block the way out, and then you came up with the idea of how to put an end to Venryth.'

That awoke a new thought – why was she nowhere near as upset about Venryth's death as she was about Drivya's? If anything, killing Venryth should feel worse, because she'd planned it, consciously chose it. But maybe that was what made the difference. She knew that she'd never choose to kill again unless she had to. But Drivya's death proved that she might kill without choosing it, and that was what was most terrifying.

'Whether you feel up to the role or not, you're the hero of the day here, Jeejee.' Ushara went on. 'We might not have been able to save Grey-Rain, and that's a terrible thing. But we saved everyone else. And if my brother wants you to waste all that potential sitting around in Black Marsh for the rest of your life, wasting that ability on slaughterfish – ' He broke off the sentence, shaking his head. 'We only have so much time to live. We should spend it doing the things we love and using the potential that we have. That's how we find the people we most care about and our place in the world.'

'But if I keep using my magic… what if I lose control again?'

'You won't. Because you'll be trained.' Ushara spoke the words without a trace of doubt. 'I'll take you to Winterhold. You can enrol there and get some proper instruction. By the end of it, you'll know how to keep your spells in line. I had a friend there, an Altmer, who'd been sent there by his family for the very reason that he couldn't control his magic. He was a real danger to the people around him; any time he got nervous, he'd accidentally freeze the entire room. By the end of a year there, his skills were so finely tuned that he could melt a single snowflake and freeze it again before it hit the ground.'

Jeerala smiled, playing out the scene in her mind. It occurred to her that she'd never seen a snowflake.

'I'd like to learn to do that,' she said.

'Of course you would. And you will.'

'But Pa won't let me leave Hejal.'

'So don't ask him if he'll let you leave.'

Jeerala stared at him. 'You mean, just… go?'

'Exactly. That's what I did. Didn't tell anyone I was leaving, just left them behind. It was easier, I suppose. No difficult goodbyes. No arguments about irresponsibility.'

After staring for a moment longer, Jeerala shook her head. 'No. I couldn't do that.'

'Of course not. Because you're a braver mortal than I.' Ushara gave her another smile. 'My advice? Tell your father you're leaving no matter what he wants. Make sure he knows nothing he says will make a difference. Tell him the truth about how you feel and let him deal with it.'

'I can do _that._ ' She knew the words were true, even though she wouldn't have a few hours before. She wasn't afraid of her father's disapproval now that she'd faced down a pack of insane mages. She was a strong person, she realised. Strong enough to choose her own way.

'Although,' Ushara said suddenly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, 'You'll have to let Pebbles down gently.'

Jeerala blinked at him. 'What?'

He chuckled and turned his head away. 'Just… be sensitive, when you tell him you're leaving.'

Frowning, Jeerala twisted her head around to look at Pebbles, following a short way behind them, tripping over a tangle of roots every few steps. This was something she'd not considered until now – the people she'd be leaving behind. She'd miss her mother, and Meer-Lai, and definitely Pebbles. She wasn't sure about her father, but she knew it would be strange to have him around. The same went for all the other residents of Hejal. They'd never understood her, nor she them, but they'd always been a part of her life. 'Of course,' she said. 'I'm going to miss him, too. He's my best friend.'

'Mmm-hmm,' was Ushara's only reply.

' _What?'_

He cleared his throat. 'Let's just say that, from observation, I'd hazard a guess at Pebbles, um, hoping that you might have eventually come to see him as more than a friend.'

Jeerala stared at him, turned around to stare at Pebbles for a second, then turned back. 'Seriously?'

'Well, yes.'

It occurred to Jeerala very quickly that he might be right. And the thought followed that she had absolutely no idea what to do about that.

'I'm not saying that should stop you leaving,' Ushara said. 'But you might want to keep it in mind when you say goodbye.'

Another complication, then. Jeerala let out a huff which quickly turned into a sigh. She loved Pebbles, just… just not in that way. He was her friend, the person in Hejal who'd always come closest to understanding her, the one who'd never judged her. But nothing more than that. And out of place as she knew he felt in their village, she knew that he would never build a house beyond its boundaries. He would grow into this life as she never would. When he was older, less overshadowed by his stronger and more capable parents and siblings, he would find it fit him. Because that was the one crucial difference between them: they were both misfits, but Pebbles had been happy.

He would be content, some day, with a house made from mud brick, a life spent on the rivers, never going further than the nearest trade outpost. Happiness, for him, would be a wife who was content with the same, and children who would grow up to follow in his footsteps. That was not what happiness would be for Jeerala. She needed to wake up in the morning and not know what the next day would bring. She needed horizons, not a sky constantly hidden from view by tangled branches. She needed a purpose, a reason for being. She needed to _live,_ not to exist.

She lifted her hand to her neck and ran her fingers over the enchanted necklace Ushara had given her all those years ago. It was warm to the touch, as always, a sign of the magic that had been woven into the metal.

Magic. It had been part of her for so long. But she felt like it had been sleeping, and only after today, after what had happened in Xinio'al, had it truly woken up.

It could take her anywhere. She just had to be brave enough to take the first step. And she knew that if she held back, she would lose her courage. She had to do it now, while the fire of the battle and the glow of her success was still within her.

She turned to Ushara.

'Let's leave tomorrow.'

* * *

Hejal looked different, somehow, when they reached it. Maybe it looked smaller, now that Jeerala's constant dreams of other, greater lands were so close to being reality. Maybe it was impossible to see it with the same eyes, now that she'd learned so much in just the few hours she'd been away.

Ushara counted off the entire party as they emerged into the clearing, then indicated with a thumbs-up to Jeerala that everyone had made it. Kavesa and Kree-Lim, who had been helping her, laid Grey-Rain's body down in the centre. Roots glanced around at the trio of houses and looked at Ushara with a frown. 'You think there'll be room for everyone?'

'We'll make room somehow.' Ushara marched up to the door of the nearest house, that of Jeerala and her family. 'Now, let's set everyone's minds at ease.'

The door opened almost the moment he rapped on it. A feeling of pleasure Jeerala wasn't used to sparked inside her as she saw that her mother was the one who'd answered her uncle's knock. She wasn't accustomed to being so happy to see her family. Could she really leave them behind?

 _Yes, I can. And I will._

'You're back!' Swims-In-Streams pushed Ushara to the side with her shoulder and rushed over, flinging her arms around Jeerala with such force that it almost punched the air from her lungs.

Jeerala sucked in a new breath. 'Hi, ma. We got Pebbles.'

'You found him?' Lateesh practically flew out of the door, racing towards her son so quickly that she was a blur. 'Oh, Hist, Pebbles – '

The entire population of the village followed, Pebbles's family gathering around him, Jeerala's family gathering around her, the former prisoners hanging back to let them reunite. Jeerala let her mother squeeze her tightly, grinned at her brother, and then looked to her father, trying hard to fight back her nervousness. Rajava looked at her for a second, then walked over to her and pulled her into his arms.

Jeerala closed her eyes and pressed her head against his chest. Had he ever done this before? If he had, she couldn't remember it. Now she thought about it, she couldn't ever remember having heard him tell her that he loved her. But she'd always known. It just hadn't been enough to know, she'd needed reminding. Now, at last, he was reminding her, and she felt like no one moment of her life had ever been filled with so much pleasure, nor so much pain. Because here was her father, holding her to him for the first time in her memory. Her father, who she was planning to disappoint, to let down, to leave behind.

Rajava released her at last, stood for a moment with his hands on her shoulders, then turned around to face Ushara. Jeerala watched as her uncle raised his head and met his brother's gaze calmly. And defiantly.

'You will never come here again,' Rajava said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. 'You will not come near my family. Especially not my daughter.'

'Your daughter made her own choice, Rajava.' Ushara folded his arms across his chest. 'She's got a right to do that, you know. I was the one who decided to go after Pebbles, but Jeerala's choice to go with me was hers and hers alone. If she'd wanted to stay, I'd have let her. And I don't think I could have done anything if I'd told her to stay and she hadn't wanted to.'

'In case it's escaped your notice, she listened to me before,' Rajava snapped. 'I told her to stay and she stayed. That's how it always is. She listens, and then you come along with your foreign ideas and you lead her into trouble. You can't do this to her! She's too young, too impressionable –'

Jeerala gaped at him. 'I'm standing right here!'

'I didn't do anything to her, Rajava. I showed her a different way of life and she decided it she preferred it to yours. Is that so terrible? Or can your mind not even begin to comprehend the idea that someone might not agree with your idea of a perfect existence?'

'Let's not start this argument again.' Swims-In-Streams took a step towards her husband and brother-in-law. 'Why don't we all talk this over calmly, and find out exactly what happened?'

But the two brothers were snout-to-snout now, their eyes narrowed and their jaws clenched. _This has been brewing for years,_ Jeerala realised. _All their problems with each other, all their disagreements – it's all coming out now. Now, of all times._

'I sometimes wonder if you think she's your daughter,' Rajava hissed. 'Is this what it's all about? You, with your refusal to settle down in one place and live normally – you could never support a wife, never have your own family. You'll never have your own children so you decided to borrow one of mine.'

'I never wanted a family!' Ushara's hands were clenched into fists. 'It's not my path in life, it's not who I am. After all, it's not like my family was ever all that great to me, was it?'

'Because you're _different!_ And you think it's somehow special and important to be so Hist-damned... odd!'

Jeerala pressed a hand against her face for a moment, then glanced around at the others. Most of the Hejal residents were watching the debate with looks of resignation. The former prisoners' expressions ranged from confusion to disapproval to – in the case of Roots – downright amusement.

Storm edged closer to Jeerala. 'Does this happen regularly?' he muttered.

'Kind of, yeah. My family has… differences of opinion.'

'Obviously.'

'You've never been more than a few days' journey from this village, Rajava!' Ushara was shouting now. 'You have no idea what's out there, and let me tell you, _you're_ the one who's different. The rest of the world has dreams, goals. The rest of the world likes the idea of having a purpose in life. Most of the rest of the world would die if they had to spend their life in this mud-hole!'

'This mud-hole is my home, and my family is happy here. All of my family was happy here, until you came along and started trying to get my only daughter killed by a wamasu.'

'Did you ever even ask her if she was happy?'

'How is she supposed to know if she's happy when you come along and trick her into thinking – '

Jeerala felt something inside her snap. She sucked air into every corner of her lungs, closed her eyes, and roared at the top of her voice. ' _Shut! Up!'_

There was a resounding silence. A ripple of head-turnings passed through the crowd of Argonians, until every eye was upon her. Ushara took a step away from his brother, suddenly looking very tired. Rajava let his shoulders relax. A hackwing screeched somewhere in the distance.

Jeerala rubbed her now rather sore throat and looked between the two men. 'Pa, for once in your life, listen to me. Before you accuse anyone of anything, you should really ask us about it. You never asked me if I was happy. And now you're not asking me whether or not Uncle Ushara was responsible for me leaving. That's your problem, you assume a lot and you never ask.'

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought that she maybe saw her mother nod wearily. She smiled and went on. 'You've also been so busy yelling that you've failed to notice a rather large gang of people standing around, who need food and shelter and somewhere to sleep. There's also a dead man who needs… you know… burying or something. My advice would be that we deal with those problems first. Then we can talk about what happened. And I'm going to make one thing very clear, because otherwise we're not going to get anywhere - I can speak for myself, and I'm going to speak for myself. That goes for both of you.' She fixed both her father and uncle with a glare as she spoke. 'I know I'm seventeen, but I'm mature enough to know how I feel, thanks, and I am sick to death of people telling me what I think. So can we all just deal with problems now, and argue later?'

She took in another breath, since this speech had pretty much drained the contents of her lungs, and looked around at them. There was another silence, in which Ushara looked at her with pride, Meer-Lai with bewilderment, and Streams with approval. Rajava just looked stunned.

'Excuse me?' Kavesa spoke up from near the back of the group. 'I… my husband died while Jeerala and Ushara were rescuing us. I'd… I'd like to…'

She broke off, brushing a hand across her eyes. 'I'm sorry. I'd like to put him to rest as soon as possible.'

Rajava jolted around to face her, as if her words had snapped him out of a dream. 'Of course. There's a Hist tree nearby.'

Jeerala had never seen a funeral service before. No one she'd known had ever died, except for Grey-Rain. But she knew the theory. Near the base of a Hist tree, the ground was often soft, with patches of mud so thick with Hist sap that anything placed upon them would sink through and be swallowed up. That was how Argonians were put to rest. Their families laid them out on these sinking muds, and they would be sucked down into the earth. Their bodies would enrich the Hist trees, whose sap nurtured the eggs that matured in the hatching pools beneath them. The dead brought on new life.

She'd always thought that comforting before. Now, looking at Grey-Rain's unmoving body, she could find no comfort in it at all.

She stood back, watching as her father began to do what he liked so much to do: organise people. Within minutes, he had Fall and Silver, armed and bearing torches, heading off through the marsh to help Kavesa lay Grey-Rain to rest. Then he allocated space in each of Hejal's three houses for the freed prisoners, calling to Streams and Shujeema to bring him the products of a week's weaving work so that no one would have to lie on a bare floor. And when that was done, he beckoned the family into the kitchen of their house and gestured for them to sit around the table. Line and Storm joined them; they would be staying the night there, but for now, they intended to help tell the story of what had happened within the walls of Xinio'al. 'See if we can't get your dad to go a little easier on you and your uncle,' Line murmured to her, and Jeerala nodded gratefully to him.

And when they were all seated, with cups of water set in front of each of them, Rajava drew in a long, slow breath – the same kind of deep breath that Jeerala took in to steel herself, she realised. It was a habit she'd learned from him.

'All right.' Rajava laid his hands down on the table. 'Here's how things seem to me. I went out with Meer, Ireethra and Lateesh. We tracked that wamasu for an hour or more, then we lost the trail over a bog. We gave Pebbles up for dead and came home. And we found that you two had vanished.'

He fixed first Ushara and then Jeerala in his gaze. 'Can you imagine what I felt then? When Pebbles was taken and Meer-Lai wasn't, I knew it was selfish, but I was so glad that it wasn't my son. And then I came home and found that my daughter was gone. I wanted to go after you, but Lateesh wasn't in the state to, Ireethra needed to take care of her, Fall and Silver weren't back from Fernglade, and it wasn't safe for Meer and I to go out alone.' His hands clenched into fists. 'Have you any idea how frightened I was?'

Frightened? It had never occurred to Jeerala that her father even had the ability to be frightened. But then… he was a parent. Her parent. Hadn't she seen today, from Lateesh and from Grey-Rain, just how terrified a parent could be when their child was threatened?

'Now you're back, and you're safe, and I'm relieved. For both of you.' Rajava shook his head. 'But I know for a fact that if Meer-Lai had been the one left behind, he'd have listened to what I told him and stayed put. Ushara, can you not see this from my point of view? I know this life isn't easy. I know it isn't pleasant. But it's _our_ life. This is the way of our ancestors and for centuries members of our family have been raised near the Hejal Hist tree, grown up here, made a living here… found love here.' He glanced in Streams's direction. 'If you have your way, then Jeerala loses all of that. She'll be thrown into a life she knows nothing about and she'll be in danger.'

'Again. I'm right here, pa.' Jeerala glanced at Ushara, seeing that he seemed to be about to speak. 'Can we all just agree that I can speak for myself?'

'We all know that,' Meer-Lai muttered.

'Meer, I think you should go.' Streams spoke up quietly, but firmly. 'Go and get some sleep. You were hurt earlier, and you were travelling across the marsh after that. Besides, I think this matter just involves Jeerala.'

Meer-Lai frowned. 'But I want to –'

'Stay and listen to everyone deciding my future? Of course you do. But I can do without having my big brother hanging around being disparaging.' Jeerala spoke more shortly than she'd intended. She wasn't angry with Meer-Lai. She wasn't really angry with anyone. But her mother was right – this wasn't a conversation that needed him here.

'Fine. If you like.' Her brother rose to his feet and made for the stairs. He paused with one foot on the lowest step and turned back. 'Hey, Jee? I'm glad you're safe.'

Jeerala swallowed and dipped her head. 'Thanks, Meer.'

They waited until the sound of his footsteps on the stairs had faded away before beginning again. Ushara was the first to speak. 'Rajava, I think you're letting your disapproval of me get in the way here. I know things haven't been right between us for a long time. But I feel a lot like you're acting as if everything I touch is tainted, even your own daughter.'

'You've changed her, Ushara. She was happy enough when she was younger, chasing swamp bats and trying to catch reed minnows with her hands like any other Argonian child. And then you came along, and suddenly all she was interested in was getting out beyond Black Marsh, learning about magic. Leaving her family! Hist, Ushara, it hurts me enough thinking about my younger brother is out putting himself at the mercy of bandits and vampires and Hist only know what else. Did you ever stop to think about that? And did you ever think about how I feel about the fact that I'm this close – ' He held up two fingers with only an inch between them, '- To having my daughter be at that risk too?'

'She's sitting right there,' Storm remarked.

Jeerala grinned at him. 'Thanks.'

'Thought I'd save you the trouble of saying it again.'

'Look, Jeerala, I'm not trying to talk about you like you're not here, or like you don't have an opinion. I'm just trying to make you understand how I feel about this.' Rajava sighed, running a hand through his feathers. 'This is not easy for me.'

Jeerala leaned back in her chair. 'All right, I'll see if I can make it easier. Your problems are – correct me if I'm wrong – that you'd miss me, that you think I'd die out there, and that you think I won't be happy away from Hejal. Right?'

'That's fairly accurate.'

'OK then.' Jeerala counted the points off on her fingers. 'One: I'd miss everyone here too, but if you really want me to be happy, I think you can deal with not having me around. Also, I don't mean to be blunt, but –' She stopped. 'Actually, that was a lie. I _do_ mean to be blunt. You've done an absolutely terrible job of making me feel like I'd be missed. You and almost everyone else in Hejal, actually. When did you ever ask me how I felt about anything? When did you ever encourage me in anything I showed a real interest in? When did you ever actually tell me that you loved me?'

Rajava gaped at her and said nothing.

'Jee.' Streams was staring at her as if she had just said that she was dying. 'Why did you never tell us you felt that way?'

'Because you never listened and you never asked! If you couldn't tell that I was unhappy, were you even _watching_ me? How impercipient can you be?'

Storm frowned. 'Imper-what?'

'But this is a good life, Jeerala.' Rajava gave a small, bewildered shake of his head. 'Why wouldn't you be happy with it?'

'Because I happen to have a different personality to you, in case that had escaped your notice over the last seventeen years! Also, I'm terrible at it. I can't weave anything without getting my fingers tangled up in threads. I'm not strong enough to haul nets. I'm too clumsy to spear a fish. This life is full of things that just aren't the things I'm good at!' She looked between her parents' faces. 'Do you even know what I'm good at?'

There was another silence.

'I know what you enjoy,' Rajava said hesitantly. 'You enjoy reading. And you…' He swallowed, and with the air of a man confessing to some terrible crime, finished, 'You enjoy your magic.'

'Well, I'm glad you've noticed _that.'_ Jeerala folded her arms. 'But you still haven't answered my question.' She turned to Ushara. 'Uncle, what am I good at?'

He rattled off the list with his eyes closed. 'You're an extremely talented mage. You're a good linguist. You have a remarkable memory for interesting facts. You can strategise and think outside the box. You're good at understanding people and working out what they think. And you can play the lute beautifully.'

Rajava stared. 'Since when did you play the lute?'

'Since three years ago, when I brought one back to her from Skyrim.' Ushara shrugged. 'It's a lovely instrument. Never could get the hang of it myself, but I had a feeling Jee might take to it.'

'I keep it under my bed,' Jeerala explained, seeing the bemusement on both her parents' faces. 'And I don't play it when anyone else is around, because the one time I tried Meer through a sock at me and told me to stop that noise.'

Line let out a snort.

Rajava seemed to shake himself. 'I did know that you're good at languages. And at coming up with words that no one else has ever heard of. But…'

'Hold on.' Line placed his hands on the table and leaned forwards slightly. 'Obviously this is a family issue that's been brewing for some time. And it seems to me that your concern is that Ushara's influence is bad for Jeerala because it puts her in danger.'

He directed the last sentence at Rajava, who nodded firmly. 'Exactly.'

'Well, you don't need to be,' Storm said bluntly. 'Because Line and I can tell you that Jeerala can take care of herself.'

'She's seventeen - ' Rajava began, but Storm broke over him.

'No, listen. You didn't see what we saw in Xinio'al today. Everyone who came back from that place owes their lives to your brother and your daughter – but especially to Jeerala. No offence, Ushara.'

'None taken. It's the truth.'

Streams's eyes flicked back and forth between them. 'I don't understand. Xinio'al?'

'Pebbles was taken for a reason, Streams.' Ushara sighed. 'That wamasu was under a mind control enchantment. A group of Dunmer mages had set up camp in the ruins of the Xinio'al temple, and they were kidnapping Argonians from the surrounding area. Their aim was… well, never mind what they were doing, but it wasn't pleasant.'

'We were taken from Acloal.' Line's expression was suddenly distant. 'They killed some of us. The rest of us they kept imprisoned for weeks. Barely any food, nowhere to wash, trapped in the dark… with the threat of what would happen to the people you loved keeping you in line.'

He closed his eyes and turned his head downwards. Storm gazed at him for a moment, then reached across the table and grasped his hand. 'It's over now,' he said.

'Yes. It is. Because of Jeerala.' Line opened his eyes again and met Rajava's. 'While Ushara prepared a distraction, your daughter used her magic to get inside Xinio'al, free all of us, and fight off the mages when they tried to stop her. Ushara must have held off their leader for a full five minutes on his own. But Jeerala… what she did was something special. I'd have never been able to show the courage she did when I was her age. But when the second-in-command of those mages blocked our path and killed one of us, Jeerala stood up to her. And Jeerala beat her. A mage with centuries of experience and the cruellest, coldest heart I've ever seen in a mortal… Jeerala beat her as if it were child's play. Never seen anything like it.'

Jeerala kept her gaze fixed firmly on the table. She wasn't sure she wanted to remember that. If her father knew how completely she'd lost control…

'Did you kill her?' Rajava demanded.

Sending a silent prayer to whatever Divines might be listening, Jeerala slowly inclined her head. 'Yes. I killed people today.'

She looked up at her father, and realised something that made her suddenly feel much older. She was sure that he had never killed anyone. She had taken life. He hadn't. She knew it was nothing to be proud of, but it was something important. It gave her a piece of experience that he simply didn't possess.

'Dear gods.' Streams's voice was almost inaudible. 'You're still so young.'

'I'm old enough to know when I have to fight to protect people,' Jeerala snapped.

'The reason we're here is to try to convince you that neither Ushara nor Jeerala did anything that you should be ashamed or afraid of.' Line was still looking at Rajava. 'If you're worried about her using her magic for bad things, or about her getting hurt – don't be. She's a Hist-damned hero.'

'Besides, if any hurting's going to be happening, I reckon she's going to be the one inflicting it,' Storm added.

Rajava's jaw clenched for a moment. 'Look, I don't pretend to know anything about magic. But I know that Jeerala's too young to be an expert.'

'She's not an expert,' Ushara retorted. 'She's simply exceptionally naturally talented. Magic is just another form of weapon, and I seem to remember you being perfectly skilled with a spear by the time you were seventeen.'

Line stood up suddenly. 'Look, I don't think Storm and I can be of any more help. We've told you what we saw and what we owe to Jeerala. I think the rest can only be set straight by you. We'll leave you to sort things out.'

Rajava gave him a gratified look, and Jeerala smiled broadly at them both. It was a good thing they'd stayed; the word of anyone other than Ushara was a vital weapon to have. Line and Storm were practical, normal-seeming Argonians, the kind of people Rajava was willing to listen to, where he wouldn't listen to his own brother.

'Thanks,' she whispered, as they walked past her seat.

'Least we can do for you,' Line murmured, and Storm gave her an encouraging kind of nod that she took to mean, _good luck with him._

'The issue here,' Rajava said, once the four of them were alone, 'is that we haven't actually worked out what we're discussing here. Jeerala, I've clearly been unfair to you, and I'm sorry about that. And Ushara… if what I've been told is true, then it's obvious that you saved a lot of lives. I can't agree with you taking Jeerala out into the marsh with you, but I'll accept that it was her choice. So what do we do about this? Where do we go from here?'

'We touched on it a little while ago.' Ushara folded his arms. 'You're not going anywhere from here. Jeerala, on the other hand – actually, she can speak for herself, right?'

Jeerala grinned again, happy that someone had remembered, and edged forward a little in her seat. This was going to be the hardest part – but she had made her choice. She was leaving Black Marsh tomorrow, and her father couldn't hold her back, no matter how angry he was. Yes, she was afraid of his anger, but she could deal with it.

'I'm going,' she said simply. 'I'm going to Skyrim to study magic at the College of Winterhold. I don't know what I'm going to do after that, but it'll involve doing useful things with my magic, stuff that helps people. That's what's going to happen. Because that's what I'm good at and that's what I love. I mean, the magic, and the helping people. I learned that in Xinio'al.' She quickly took in a breath so that she could go on without leaving enough time for her to be interrupted. 'And I'm going no matter what you say or think about it, so what I'm asking from you right now is to try to be happy for me and accept that this is what I want in life.'

The declaration made at last, she shuffled to the back of her seat and waited for the explosion. It didn't come.

She dared to look at her father, and what she saw made her wonder, suddenly, if she'd misjudged him all along. Because he wasn't looking at her with anger, or even shock. He wasn't even looking at her. He was in the process of dropping his head onto the table, resting his forehead against the wooden surface. And she could see that the scales below his eyes were wet.

'So this is what it comes down to, isn't it?' His voice was hoarse. 'I suppose this is the root of it, the reason I've told myself for years that this is just something you'll grow out of. If I accept that you're not happy here, that you might be better off somewhere else, then I'm accepting that I failed.'

'Rajava,' Streams murmured, and tucked an arm over his shoulder. 'That's not it.'

'It isn't?' He lifted his head. 'This is not an easy place to live. I've got so little to offer any of you. I've tried so hard to provide for you all, to give you a safe home and food and enough to get by on. But in the end, I couldn't make you happy. My own daughter. I failed.'

'Pa…' Jeerala's throat felt suddenly constricted. 'Pa, that's not why I'm leaving. It's not because I didn't have enough to eat or because you didn't provide for the family. It's because I'm just a different sort of person and I like different things. If I were the same kind of person as Meer-Lai, I'd be happy here. I'm just not.'

'And if you go, then it's out of my hands.' As if to underline the point, he threw them up into the air, then let them drop back onto the table. 'You'll be a million miles away from me, in a country I can't reach and couldn't survive in. If you're in trouble, I can't help. I can't do anything to make you happy if you're living in Skyrim.'

'That's my choice to make and my risk to take. I can look after myself for the most part, and I can send letters. Lots of people go and live ages away from their parents when they grow up. And anyway, you don't need to do anything to make me happy. I'll just be happy. I know I will be.'

'How can you know that?'

Streams placed a hand on her husband's chin and turned his head around to face her. 'She can't know for certain. And she'll never know unless she goes. Java, we can't keep her here where we know she's unhappy. The only thing we can do for her is to let her go. If she's unhappy there, then maybe she'll find something else to do. Maybe she'll come home. Maybe she won't. But I say we let her go and let her find for herself what makes her happy.'

Rajava gave another head-shake – not one of refusal, Jeerala could tell, but one of distress. 'I don't like taking risks. Any risks. And risking my daugher's life…'

'Pa.' Jeerala wasn't sure why she rose to her feet, but suddenly there she was, standing. 'Pa, it's my life to risk.'

He stood too. For a moment, they stayed there, just looking at each other. Then he pushed back his seat and walked around the table to stand in front of her.

'You've grown up,' he said.

All Jeerala could think of to do was nod. 'I think so, yes.'

'Then it looks like it's time for me to grow up, too.' Rajava let out a long breath. 'You don't need my permission to go. I can tell that much. But… you have my blessing. And my love.'

He held out his hand. Jeerala looked down at it for a second.

Then she knocked it aside and threw her arms around him.

* * *

 **You know, this was originally going to be the last chapter. What a surprise, a story refused to comply with my plan... again. XD**

 **I can't remember having read anything about Argonian burial traditions in the lore, so I created my own. Feels right somehow, Argonians coming from the Hist, and going back to the Hist...**

 **The next chapter will be the last one. Hope you've enjoyed it so far, hope you enjoy what's left to come, and t** **hanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**So here we are at last, at the final chapter of this longer-than-intended story. I've loved writing about Jeerala, and it's been great seeing, from the feedback I've got, that you lovely readers enjoyed her story too. This is a bit of a milestone for me, because the 30th of January, a few days ago, marked my fourth anniversary of joining the Fanfiction. Reading through _Priidahkrein_ and then taking slightly disgusted glances at what I produced all that time ago, I'm very happy to see how far my writing's come. **

**And of course I still have more to learn, so more stories are on their way. The next installment in my collection of short stories about my Dragonborns will be _Blood Family,_ featuring my Redguard Dragonborn, Ozan, and his rather peculiar family. That should be up shortly. For now, I'll just say thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this final chapter - in which I've managed to include the long-overdue explanation of why this story is called _Priidahkrein_ (though you may have to check my first Author's Note to remind yourself of what it means)along with my two favourite words in the English language...**

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHT

It took no more than ten minutes for Jeerala to sort through and pack up the entirety of her worldly possessions. Ushara had advised her that for a journey across the provinces, it would be unwise to burden herself too heavily, so she was ruthless with her packing, turning out any articles of clothing that were too big or not necessary enough to take with her, folding those she consented to take so that they took up as little space as possible in her backpack. Parting with her books was harder. They would make up the bulk of the weight she carried, and so she would have to be selective. In the end she narrowed it down to the five she simply couldn't part with and pushed them down to the bottom of the bag. She packed a couple of quills, wrapped up a bottle of ink inside one of her shirts so that it wouldn't break, and stuffed in a few scrolls of parchment. A few odds and ends, like her horn decorations, and the little carved wooden dragon that Ushara had brought to her from Cyrodiil once, made up the rest of the pack's contents. Finally, she went to her mother, asked for a length of twine, and lashed her lute onto her bag. It would be heavy and awkward to carry across three countries, but there was no way that she was leaving it behind.

She heaved the bag over her shoulders, decided it was too heavy, and turned out a book and a shirt. She could always get more in Skyrim. The College had a library, Ushara had assured her, with more books in it than she could ever wish for, and they'd provide her with mage robes. She wasn't packing for life, just for a journey.

With the bag a little lighter, she hefted it up onto her shoulders and turned in a slow circle, looking around at the room she'd shared with her brother for as long as she could remember. She'd grown used to waking up to the rap of his knuckles on the door, falling asleep to the sound of him stirring beneath his blanket. Would he find it odd, waking up alone from now on? Would he miss her? And would she miss this small room, the creak of the chest where she'd stored everything she owned, the oddly comfy lumpiness of her pillow, the bed where she'd lain for hours on her stomach with a book propped open in front of her?

Yes. She would miss it. But she had no regrets about leaving it behind.

An unexpected sight was waiting for her when she hauled her bag downstairs. Rajava, Meer-Lai and Swims-In-Streams were standing in a row in front of the table, shoulder to shoulder, clearly waiting for her. Ushara hung back slightly, leaning against the wall. There was a short silence, then Streams turned around and plucked something that looked like a length of cloth from the table.

'Jee, we're all sorry to see you go,' she said, and from the way she spoke the words, Jeerala could tell that this was the start of a rehearsed speech. 'We're going to miss you, but we hope that you'll be happy. And we couldn't let you go without doing what little we could to help you on your way.'

She held out the cloth, and Jeerala saw that it was in fact a scarf, one of the ones her mother sometimes made for sale. In this area of Black Marsh, there was often no point to decorating items of clothing – no one wanted to pay extra for something that added expense without purpose. But Streams had decorated this with white patterns in the traditional geometric Argonian style, carefully embroidered against the blue material to look like waves.

'I was going to give you this when you turned eighteen,' Streams murmured, as she bent to tie it around Jeerala's neck. 'It wouldn't really have much practical use here, just something nice to wear. But maybe in Skyrim, it'll keep you a little warmer.'

'I hope so.' Jeerala reached up to work the cloth through her fingers. 'Thanks, Ma.'

Meer-Lai let out a short cough and took a step forward. 'This isn't much, but it's, you know, it's something.' He held out one hand, uncurling his fingers to reveal what looked at first like no more than a sliver of tree bark. Looking closer, though, Jeerala could see that patterns had been carved into it, some of them filled with what looked like plant dye. She plucked it from her brother's palm and held it up to the light.

'It's from the Hist tree,' Meer-Lai explained. 'Made those patterns on it when I was bored and didn't have anything to do. I've carried it with me for years. You know, for luck. But I think you need it more than I do now. I thought you could tie it onto one of your horns. I know you like decorating them.'

Jeerala nodded and slipped it into a pocket, mumbling her thanks. Somehow something as small as a strip of bark from the brother who'd always clearly cared, but always struggled to show it was just as precious as a lovingly decorated scarf from her mother. She turned to her father, and he met her gaze evenly.

'I thought it would be best to send you off with something practical.' He turned to the table and scooped up a thin item a little longer than Jeerala's hand. 'I've used this my whole life, you've seen me with it. Used it for gutting fish and trimming fishing line. I'm not sure I want to know what you might use it for, but I hope it'll be just for cutting firewood and slicing up food. If you have to use it in self-defence… then at least it's something for you to resort to if that magic lets you down.'

He held it out, and Jeerala realised what it was: a knife, the blade hidden inside a leather sheath. She'd often seen this weapon strapped at her father's hip, watched his practised fingers work it with deft, easy movements. She'd looked on in envy, knowing that she would never be able to apply her clumsy hands to such a tool. But here it was, being offered to her.

She took it silently, her throat too tight for her to express her thanks in anything but a nod. This, Rajava handing over his knife – an object that seemed to define him so much – made everything final. This was him accepting that she was going, giving her his blessing. Which meant that there was nothing that could hold her back anymore. Not that she wanted to be held back, of course, but it was still frightening, being so free.

'Everyone else is waiting outside,' Streams said, as Jeerala tried the straps of the knife around her belt. 'Everyone from Hejal, and a few of the prisoners you freed.'

'I've got the food supplies.' Ushara hefted his own pack onto his shoulders. 'So once you've said goodbye, we're good to go.'

Jeerala gave another nod. 'Right.'

It occurred to her, as she pushed open the door to the house where she'd been born, the house she'd lived in for seventeen years, that this could be the last time she set foot within these walls, the last time she saw these faces. She could die out there in the world beyond Hejal long before she was able to visit her home again. And even if she didn't, she might never want to risk the long, dangerous return journey. She might be happy enough there to never leave.

She breathed in deeply and stepped over the threshold.

Out in the clearing, they were all waiting, the people she'd shared her life with for so long. Follows-The-Fall, who looked at her with slight bewilderment on his face, as if he couldn't understand why she would want to go. Lateesh, her jaw clenched – Jeerala guessed she was biting back anger at the sudden loss of a marriage opportunity for Pebbles. Catches-Silver, who, from his expression, seemed impressed at her daring. Ireethra, looking surprisingly subdued. Shujeema, who smiled shyly, almost admiringly. And Pebbles, her best friend for so many years, biting his lip.

She'd be missed, she realised. Remembering what Ushara had said the previous day, about how Pebbles would have liked more than friendship, she wished that she could talk to him alone. Apologise to him, wish him well, tell him how much he meant to her. But of course, he didn't mean enough to her for her to want to stay, so maybe it would just make things harder for him.

Nearby, a little way apart from the others, stood a few of the men and women she'd led out of Hejal. She slipped her backpack down from her shoulders, laid it on the ground behind her, and headed over to them.

'We couldn't let you go without saying thank you.' Holds-The-Line glanced around at the others, and from the nods and smiles they gave, Jeerala could tell that he was speaking for them all. 'We owe you our freedom. Probably our lives, too. We're more grateful than we can say, and – we hope you find everything you're looking for.'

'And Grey-Rain would say the same, if he were here.' Kavesa still seemed half-crushed by her grief, her voice hoarse and her eyes holding streaks of red, but she had it in her to smile. 'You avenged his death, and you did what he wanted done. You gave our daughter a future.'

The reference to Drivya's death made a flicker of unease stir in Jeerala's stomach, and mentally, she snapped at it to shut up. She was leaving Hejal now so that she could study magic properly, so that she'd never lose control again. She had to stop worrying about it. It would just confuse things. She forced the thought from her mind.

'I should probably be thanking you guys.' Jeerala scuffed the ground with her boot, feeling suddenly awkward. 'I mean, if I hadn't had you there to… you know, help, I'd probably never have found the guts to leave home.'

'Glad to know we could be of service.' Storm smirked good-naturedly at her. 'Let's get kidnapped more often.'

That was able to make Jeerala laugh, and she felt her spirits lift a little.

'Be safe out there,' Line said, bending down slightly to be on a level with her. 'If what we saw in Xinio'al is anything to go by, you're set to have some adventures.'

'What about you?' Jeerala knew that plenty of the former prisoners did not have homes to go back to. 'Where are you going to live now?'

'Well, Acloal's in ruins, and we don't fancy building it back up with just the two of us and Vasheeka.' Storm shrugged. 'We've talked it over with your father and Follows-The-Fall, and we think we're going to put down roots here in Hejal. Kavesa, too. With plenty of other hands around to help with the fishing, your family will be able to cope without you.'

A grin spread across Jeerala's face. 'That's great!'

Line chuckled. 'New beginnings for all of us, I guess.'

Perhaps, Jeerala thought, with a few new residents in the village, her family would have things to take their mind off her absence. And it was good to know that she'd be able to see Line and Storm again if she ever came back to visit Hejal. She'd known them less than a full day, but they were friends.

'You know,' she said, forcing herself out of her thoughts, 'they can cope without me just fine. If you're staying here, you'll hear plenty of stories about how maladroit I am.'

'Um. If you say so.'

' _Clumsy._ Hey, I've left my dictionary behind, so now you guys can all read it and learn some proper words. Maybe if I visit in a few years' time, I'll find that you'll all have logophilia.'

Storm blinked. 'I sure hope not. Sounds nasty.'

'It's not a disease, it's the love of words. If you have it, you're sagacious and gnostic.'

'All right, now I think you're just making stuff up.'

Jeerala laughed, shook their hands, nodded to the ones she didn't know so well, and turned to face the Hejal residents. She was surprised by how easy it felt to say goodbye to them. It was like saying goodbye to the house. Fall and Lateesh and the rest had always been around, but that was all. They'd just _been_ there. That was the only reason she really had to miss them. Pebbles was the only exception. She'd miss him because she liked him.

'Well, it's… well.' Fall tipped his head on one side. 'It's going to be odd not having you around, Jeerala.'

'Yeah.' Jeerala nodded. 'It's going to be odd not being around.'

'We'll miss you,' Shujeema said quietly. 'I hope you don't get into any trouble in… you know. Out there.'

Jeerala smiled her thanks and looked in Pebbles's direction. His gaze was very firmly fixed on the ground.

She made a move towards him, but Ushara coughed loudly from behind her, and she stopped. 'I think we'd best go quickly,' her uncle announced, 'or it'll be harder for everyone. You ready, Jee?'

Steeling herself, Jeerala walked back over to her backpack and pulled it up onto her shoulders. 'Yeah. Let's do this.'

One last, tear-stained hug from her mother. A few moments in a tight, silent clinch with her father. A grin shared with Meer-Lai. A final glance sent Pebbles's way. Then Ushara's hand touched her shoulder, indicating that it was time to go, and she was doing it at last, walking away from Hejal, from the place that was no longer her home. Away from a life spent hauling nets, away from her family and everything she'd never known.

She stayed close behind Ushara. He, after all, was the one who knew the path through the marsh. Neither of them spoke until Hejal was out of sight; then Ushara cleared his throat and began talking rapidly, as if hoping he could distract her from the enormity of what she was doing. 'We'll be going on foot to Green River, past the fishing stream, and we'll reach Huacax by the end of the day. They'll give us a ferry down to Helstrom, and from there we'll be able to get passage to Cyrodiil – I think it's safest to go through there, rather than through Morrowind. Should take us about –'

'Jee! Jee! Wait!'

Jeerala spun around. 'Pebbles!'

He was struggling through the undergrowth, breathing hard, and Jeerala knew that he'd run the whole way from the village. 'Just wait,' he shouted, pushing a neck-high fern aside and stumbling the last distance between them. 'I just need to say –'

He stopped in mid-breath, apparently suddenly lost for words.

Ushara's eyes flicked from Pebbles to Jeerala and back again. 'You know, I think I saw some interesting plants back there. I'm just going to go take a look at them. Don't mind me. I'll be back.'

He sauntered off into the greenery. Jeerala waited until the sound of his footsteps crunching on the foliage had faded, then gestured for Pebbles to speak.

Her friend breathed in deeply. 'Jee. I really don't want you to go.'

'I know.'

'Do you, though?' He shook his head. 'I don't think you get just how much I'm going to miss you. You could be happy here. You really could.'

'I couldn't.' Saying the words felt like a betrayal, but it was the truth, and lying to Pebbles would just hurt them both. 'This isn't where I belong, Pebbles. I couldn't have the kind of life that our families have. Staying in Hejal, getting married, having kids, then just dying without having actually _done_ anything – I couldn't do that.'

'But that life isn't about nothing. It's about – you know, the people with you. The people who – who you care about. The people who care about you.'

Jeerala closed her eyes. Was there any way to do this without hurting him? She prided herself on being good with words, but right now, she had no idea what to say.

'Pebbles.' She swallowed, sent a silent prayer to whoever or whatever might be listening to help them both, and went on. 'Pebbles, I know that you care about me. And it's not that I don't care – I mean, I do, just – you know – I don't… damn it.'

To her relief, he nodded. 'It's OK. I get it.' He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his breeches. 'I guess it's my own fault, really. If you were the kind of person who wanted to stay and live here, the kind of person who could… who could live with me, I probably wouldn't care about you so much. Because you'd be just like everyone else in Hejal, and it's because you're not like them that I…'

He sighed and fell silent.

'You saved my life, you know.' His gaze was back on the ground. 'In Xinio'al, you just came out of nowhere to save me. You and Ushara, you saved everyone. That was just… incredible, Jee. I guess I don't deserve you.' He blinked. 'That sounds... what's that fancy Bretic word you always use? Cliché.'

'No!' Jeerala shook her head hurriedly, her eyes widening. 'Pebbles, that's not why I don't – Hist, Pebbles, if there's any not-deserving going on around here, it's on my account. I mean, you didn't sell me out to those mages, even after everything. You knew they wanted me.' Her own eyes flicked down to the ground now. 'I guess I'm selfish. Wanting to go, when…'

Now it was his turn to shake his head. 'You're not selfish. You could have died saving everyone in Xinio'al.' A frown crossed his face. 'Jee, when you were fighting those mages… were you scared?'

'Yes,' Jeerala said, on instinct, then stopped, considering the question. 'Actually… no. I was scared about what might happen to you and the others, and I was scared that I might mess up and let something bad happen, but I wasn't scared by being there. Does that make sense?'

He nodded. 'Completely. That's the thing, Jee. I was scared. And I was scared for _me._ I was scared of dying. I don't ever want to be in danger like that again. You… you're different. If you're not scared of dying when that's happening around you, then you're… special.' He turned his head in the direction of Hejal. 'I guess this place isn't special. Neither am I, really.'

'Pebbles, you are special. Everyone's –'

'You know what I mean, Jee. Those books you're always reading… you're like one of the heroes in those. You're different from the rest of us and there's got to be a reason for that, a purpose. I think it's incredible, Jee. I think you're incredible. But I guess you need an incredible life. And that's something I couldn't give you.'

Jeerala stared at him, and stared some more. Her throat was hot and dry again, and it took a moment for her to realise why. There probably weren't very many people in the world who were like Pebbles. People who gave their hearts willingly, who said exactly what they thought without caring about how it sounded, who were kind and thoughtful, who asked for nothing from life but got on with living and were simply _good._ Pebbles was the incredible one. He was the selfless one, the one who really understood the way things were. She might live a hundred years and never meet someone else like him. But she didn't, and couldn't, love him.

He took a step closer to her, and glanced down at her hands as if he'd like to take hold of them. 'Jee, are you sure you're going to be happy out there?'

There was nothing to do but tell the truth. 'No. But I'm sure I can't be happy in Hejal. I'm sure I can't be happy catching fish for the rest of my life. And I'm sure that my best chance to be happy is by leaving.'

He nodded. 'Then I can't ask you to stay.' He sucked in another long breath. 'You'll visit, won't you? Or write, at least.'

'Of course. Often as I can.'

Another nod. Pebbles lifted a hand and brushed at his eyes, and Jeerala suddenly realised that she was crying too. Hist, she would miss him.

'I really, really hope you're happy,' he said, and his voice was a hoarse whisper.

All Jeerala could think of to do was to step forward and hug him, tight and close. 'I hope you are, too.'

A few seconds passed. Then he let her go and stepped back. 'I'd… I'd better get back to Hejal before my mother starts thinking that another wamasu's got me. Take care of yourself, Jee. Have a good life.'

'You too, Pebbles.' Jeerala grinned. 'In fact, you should have a life full of effervescent jubilation.'

He laughed suddenly. 'You'll have to tell me, when we next see each other. Whether or not the people in the world beyond the marsh actually understand these big words of yours.'

'Well, first I'll have to learn what they all are in the common tongue.' Jeerala chuckled. 'Bye, Pebbles.'

'Goodbye, Jee. Walk in the shade of the Hist.' He coughed. 'I mean, you're _not_ going to be in the shade of the Hist, because you're not going to be in Black Marsh, but, metaphorically. You know.'

'Metaphorically? Now who's using big words?'

He smiled, bit his lip, lifted a hand. Then he turned and started struggling his way back towards the village.

Jeerala stood there, watching him go, until he was out of sight. She felt lighter somehow, as if the words they'd shared had set her free. Which, in a way, they had. She had nothing left now that might bind her to Hejal. When she turned around and kept walking, she would truly be out in the world.

A rustling of leaves and a snapping of twigs told her that Ushara was approaching. 'Well?' he asked, as he reached her. 'Sorted?'

'As well as things like this can be sorted.'

'Was he upset?'

'Yeah, but he took it well. I mean, we talked it over, and…' Jeerala sighed. 'I'm going to miss him, and I never wanted to hurt him, but… I have to go. You know?'

'Of course I do. I felt the same about your father when it was time for me to leave. I suppose I made a mistake, there. Saying goodbye was too hard, so I never did. I guess that was cowardly. But he was my brother, still is my brother, and I did love him, even if I had trouble showing it. I still do.' He turned his head to look down at her. 'You're a wiser mortal than I, Jeerala. Not making the mistake I made.'

Jeerala wrapped her fingers around the straps of her pack. 'I'm ready to keep going.'

'Of course you are.' Ushara gave her a light nudge. 'On we go.'

The first real step, then. The first step away from home with nothing that could possibly compel her to go back. She lifted her foot, and took it. It was surprisingly easy.

Of course it was. It was just a step, in the end.

'As we go…' Jeerala rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms – already, the bag was weighing her down. 'Can you tell me about Skyrim? About the College of Winterhold? What's it like?'

'About as different to Hejal as you can get.' Ushara's voice was suddenly distant, almost dreamy. 'The sky's so open,Jee. No branches blocking the view, no vines, no leaves. You stand on the plains of Whiterun and you look up, and it's just _there._ So empty. As far as you can see, from one end of the sky to another, just nothing but clouds among the blue. Just space. So big and endless you can taste the freedom of it.'

He was walking faster, as if the memory was pumping pure energy through his veins. 'And the snow. I can't wait for you to see snow for the first time, Jeejee. It freezes you right through when it lands on your scales, but it's so beautiful. Watching it circle from the sky and cover everything. In Winterhold, it barely stops. You can't even see the sky for the snowflakes, the air's thick with them. And the sound as they crunch under your feet, the way the world looks when it's been falling all night and it's unbroken and smooth and perfect… you don't want to go outside your door, because putting a footprint in something that beautiful is like spitting on a shrine to the gods.'

He twisted his head around to face her. He was smiling.

'That's what's waiting for you, Jee,' he said. 'Beauty. Freedom. New things.' He gave a tiny, wondering, shake of his head. 'Real life.'

Jeerala smiled too. Then she quickened her pace, step for step with her uncle, batting aside the branches that blocked her path. This was what would take her to snow, and open sky, and knowledge of magic. Steps. Lots of them, all put together. Her own feet would take her, fuelled by her love of magic and her desire to learn – and her boredom with fishing and the intervention of an insane cult of mages. All of that together would take her there.

To Skyrim. To Winterhold. To the future. Out of the marshes, and into whatever lay beyond.

* * *

There was silence, absolute silence, as Jeerala finished speaking.

Carefully, slowly, she slipped her fingers under the back cover of the book and flipped it shut. A faint thump echoed through the Arcanaeum, and the candle flame trembled under the rush of air.

'Well.' Jeerala coughed quietly and glanced up. 'That's, um… that's the end, I guess.'

Another few moments of silence. Then Brelyna gave a small shake of her head. 'I feel like I should clap or something, but Urag would probably throw us out if I did.'

J'zargo's eyes were narrowed. 'Is all of that true?'

'Of course it's true!' Onmund snapped his head around to glare at the Khajiit. 'When have you ever known Jee to lie about anything?'

'There is always a first time. Besides, what is the harm in lying when it makes the story better?'

Jeerala snorted. 'Just because your people have a culture half-based on prevarication - don't look at me like that, it means lying - doesn't mean we all do. Yes, that was all true. And it took me two and a half months to write, so if you're rude about it, I'm going to accidentally set fire to your fur in our next Destruction class. On purpose.'

'It's incredible,' Brelyna breathed. 'You did all that when you were just seventeen.'

Onmund grinned and gave her a nudge. 'You'd best watch out, Brel. Get Jee angry, and she'll toast you.'

'It was just that one Dunmer woman,' Jeerala protested. 'I don't make a habit of burning my friends alive. Honestly. Promise.'

'You threatened to singe this one's fur to cinders not five seconds ago.'

'I might make an exception for you, fuzzball.'

'Anyway, it wasn't exactly as if she meant to do it,' Onmund said, shrugging. 'Guess it was your dragon side showing, right?'

Jeerala nodded. 'Guess so. Once I started absorbing dragon souls, that anger thing happened more often, and it was even stronger. Especially when I used fire magic. But then when I met Paarthurnax, and he told me it was just the rage in my dragon blood being woken up by the danger and that I could learn to control it, the way he does. Took a lot of meditating on top of mountains, and that was the most boring thing I have ever done except waiting for fishing nets to fill up, but it works. Usually.'

J'zargo hissed under his breath. 'So that is how you have already mastered the expert-level Destruction spells. J'zargo thinks we should complain to Faralda that you have an unfair advantage. Or perhaps we could all have a… what is the word, a blood transmutation?'

'Transfusion,' Jeerala corrected him. 'And, A, I don't think that's how being Dragonborn works, and B, I should point out that the extra magical oomph comes at the cost of having a race of sentient more-or-less immortal flying lizards considering you to be their mortal enemy. You try walking down the street to buy some new quills and suddenly having this enormous scaly _thing_ dropping from the sky screaming _raaargh, Dovahkiin, you die now,_ and see how much you like it.'

'It would be a good challenge of J'zargo's ability to use wards.'

'Well, maybe I can arrange for you to meet Odahviing, and see how well your wards hold up against him.'

Brelyna moved her chair a little closer to Jeerala's. 'You do write to them, don't you? Your family, I mean. Do they know how happy you are here?'

'It'd be hard for them not to know. I sent them a letter not long after I got to Skyrim. It was months before I got a reply, but we're, you know, we're in contact and everything. And everyone's fine. Shujeema's egg hatched, and it's a boy. Meer-Lai married Ireethra, and their egg's due to hatch later this year. Line and Storm and Kavesa and everyone have settled down in Hejal, and they're doing well. They've built new houses for them all, and people are actually going up there to trade rather than them having to go down to Fernglade all the time.' Jeerala shrugged. 'Figures – the place starts actually becoming interesting right after I leave.'

'Would you ever go back?' Brelyna asked.

'Are you kidding? Why'd I want to go back? I've got everything I want here. Sure, the evil dragon overlord thing was a bit... disconcerting, but I dealt with Alduin and I'm in control of my magic and life's _interesting._ And I have the best bunch of friends ever.'

'Pass J'zargo a bucket.'

Brelyna pretended to hit him. 'It's not a weakness to actually show that you like your friends, you know.'

J'zargo's tail flicked. 'Yes, but only as long as you do not embarrass them.'

'Do you think you'll ever go back to visit them?' Onmund said loudly, speaking over the Khajiit before his words could spark an argument. 'Your family?'

Jeerala made a vague gesture with her hand. 'Eh, sometime, probably. Maybe when Meer-Lai's egg hatches, I'll go back to visit my little niece or nephew. See if I can't get them interested in magic early on. Someone's got to carry on Ushara's legacy, right?'

'What happened to him?' Brelyna tilted her head slightly. 'From what he said, I thought he'd be bringing you all the way to Winterhold, but you came here alone, didn't you?'

Onmund glanced sharply in Jeerala's direction, his expression suddenly wary. Jeerala pressed her lips tightly together, clasped her hands, and looked down at the table.

There was silence again. A frown furrowed Brelyna's brow. J'zargo sat upright. Onmund's gaze stayed on Jeerala, and even an Argonian like Rajava, who had no experience in reading human faces, would have recognised the concern in his eyes.

'We… we ran into trouble at the border,' Jeerala said faintly. 'The Empire was trying to catch Ulfric Stormcloak, and we ended up caught in the middle. There was this Imperial soldier trying to shout the rest of them into order, and he saw us, and he said that we had to stop and turn around and go back to Cyrodiil because otherwise he'd arrest us. On suspicion of being Stormcloak sympathisers. At least, that's what I think he said.'

' _What?'_ Brelyna stared at her. 'But Ulfric hates Argonians. At least, he seems to, from the way the ones in Windhelm live. Why'd he think you were with them?'

'I don't know. I guess it was just that one who was an idiot, or he was under pressure, or he just wanted to scare us so we'd get out of the way. I don't know, I just don't know. But Ushara said the Imperials didn't have a right to make us turn around, and the soldier got worked up and said he was arresting us, and I guess Ushara realised that the prisoners they were taking that day were scheduled for execution because he pushed the guy away and yelled at me to run. And we did run, but there were lots of them, and that soldier shouted to the others to shoot us, and – '

A shudder ran through her, and she placed her hands flat on the table, as if to steady herself. 'They - they shot him.'

Brelyna's eyes were round. 'Oh, Gods, no...'

'I don't know why. Maybe they really thought we were the enemy, or maybe they were meant to be warning shots and they just had really bad aim, or maybe they just didn't want anyone interfering with them capturing Ulfric, but…' Jeerala stopped to steady her breathing. 'When they got him, he told me to keep going, to leave him behind, and not to look back.'

There was an odd, hollow tone in her voice now; Jeerala could hear it, and it didn't sound like her. 'So I did, because I was scared. But then I reached the top of the rise, and I looked back, and I saw… I saw him lying there. And I – I got angry.'

J'zargo let out a quiet hiss. 'J'zargo imagines that did not end well for them.'

'I didn't even know I was Dragonborn yet, but I felt more like a dragon then than ever.' Jeerala blinked the tears from her eyes. 'I just kept throwing fireballs at them. Again and again. None of them would go near me, they were too afraid of being burned to death, and I never meant to hurt so many of them but I was so _angry_ and I couldn't think and I just lost control and I guess I didn't really know my own strength – '

She was glad that she had to stop for breath. It meant that she could stop talking about it, which meant she could stop thinking about it.

'Anyway, in the end they managed to get hold of me, because I was running out of magicka. And I let them take me. Because when that… that angry fog went out of my mind, I saw the people I'd killed lying there, and I remembered what I did to Drivya. I'd promised myself I'd never do something like that again, and I'd done it.'

Onmund reached over and rested his hand on her arm. 'They killed your uncle. You loved him. Of course you were angry.'

'Besides, you'd probably never have been able to do so much damage if you didn't have dragon blood,' Brelyna added. 'And that's not your fault.'

'So what happened then?' J'zargo had dropped his earlier nonchalance, Jeerala realised – he was genuinely interested. Which was nice. She knew J'zargo cared deep down, but it could be hard to get him to show it sometimes.

'Well, they tried to execute me along with Ulfric and the others. They took my things… everything I wasn't wearing, and even stuff I was wearing that they thought was valuable, they took. They took my father's knife, and my books. They broke my lute.' She stopped for a moment, remembering how she'd wept freely, unashamedly, when she'd seen them snap the instrument and stamp it into the ground. 'They didn't take my scarf, though, or the piece of bark that Meer gave me.'

'Obviously, since you are wearing them now,' J'zargo remarked.

Brelyna was beginning to look a little tearful herself. 'You didn't fight back at all?'

'No. I wasn't going to fight back, I thought I deserved whatever I got. But then, you know, they tried to execute me in Helgen, and a big flying lizard showed up and breathed fire everywhere, so that was the end of that execution. I ran away with the Stormcloaks, went to Whiterun to tell the Jarl about it, did some stuff to help out because I wanted to make up for what I did at the border, and because I needed money for new stuff, ran into another dragon, absorbed its soul, found out I was Dragonborn, went on a world-saving quest, saved the world, then came here to learn about magic properly. The end.'

'So you missed all the best parts from what you wrote,' J'zargo protested. 'Who wants to know about your boring life in Black Marsh? You write a whole long thing about who you were before you became a hero, but nothing about your real quest once you had become one.'

Jeerala rolled her eyes and picked up the notebook in which she'd scrawled down her tale. 'This is called an origin story, J'zargo. It's meant to talk about who I was before I became a hero. Besides, everyone knows about how I defeated Alduin. Other people are all busy writing books about that, and they'll probably be hopelessly inaccurate, but at least the story's being told. But no one really knows about who I was before I was Dragonborn, so I thought I'd write it. And there you are, I wrote it.'

'It was a good story,' J'zargo conceded. 'But who wants to know that the saviour of the world started life in a mudpool village in Black Marsh?'

'What'd you prefer, for me to lie about it? Besides, every hero's story starts somewhere.' Jeerala shrugged. 'I admit, my beginning was hardly impressive. I do wonder, sometimes, if Skyrim's people would be disappointed to learn that it was nothing more than a love of magic, a hatred of fishing, and a healthy dose of boredom that set their unlikely saviour's feet on the path of the Dragonborn…' She stopped, frowned, and added as an afterthought, 'Oh, and the random, insane cult of kidnapping mages. They helped too.'

'Hey!' The shout made all four of them start in the way that only students hearing the sound of a teacher's voice can start. 'It's two hours past nightfall. I should have kicked you out fifteen minutes ago. Scram!'

J'zargo fixed Urag with a piercing glare – at least, it would have been piercing, if directed at anyone other than Urag. 'If you needed us gone then, why is it only now that you –'

The Orc grunted. 'I was reading a good book. Lost track of time.'

'You weren't,' Onmund protested. 'I saw you, you were listening to Jeerala, just like the rest of us.'

'No backtalk. Out.'

Jeerala pushed back her chair and drew herself up to her full height. 'I think the Arcanaeum should stay open all night. Knowledge shouldn't come with restrictions.'

'Fancy. But I need my sleep, and I'm not letting you grubby-fingered kids paw all over my books when I'm not around. Out.'

Jeerala sighed; sometimes it was best to admit to defeat. She gathered up her book and nodded to the others. It was late anyway, she supposed. Her bed in the Hall of Attainment seemed like the best place she could possibly be.

'Probably best we don't stay up too long anyway,' Brelyna remarked, as they headed for the stairs. 'Tolfdir told me we might have to leave quite early for the Saarthal expedition.'

Out of the corner of her eye, Jeerala saw Onmund purse his lips slightly, and she gave him a light punch on the arm. 'Lighten up, Onmund. It's going to be great fun.'

'I don't like the idea of poking around in the halls of my ancestors,' the Nord said firmly. 'Call me a killjoy, but it just seems disrespectful.'

J'zargo nodded. 'You are a killjoy.'

'Come on, it'll be amazing. There's going to be so much stuff down there!' Jeerala realised that in her excitement, she was taking the stairs two at a time. 'We could find ancient artefacts, or some of those old murals with carvings telling historical stories, or a Word Wall – '

'Which only you would get any benefit out of, J'zargo might point out.'

'-Or even a dragon priest, and I know they sound scary but with the right spells they're not actually too hard to take out and one wouldn't stand a chance against all three of us and Tolfdir and Arniel, and those masks are fascinating, I took the ones I found while I was hunting Alduin to Sergius and he said they were masterpieces of enchanting work – '

J'zargo sighed theatrically 'And now we have set her off.'

'- And even if we don't find anything else, it's still going to fantastic just being there, I mean, it used to be a city and there's going to be so much history and there's no reason to worry about it.'

'And breathe,' Onmund said, grinning.

They had reached the courtyard; all four of them pulled up their hoods against the snow-filled wind. Jeerala tipped back her head, smiling as she saw how the white flakes had obscured the sky. Ushara had been right. It was beautiful. In fact, everything about this was beautiful. Here she was, striding through snow (actual _snow_ ) in a land where the sky went on forever. She was in a place she loved, learning about the thing she loved more than anything else. And the people. Savos Aren, the wise Archmage who always had a kind word for the students and advice for improving their skills. Tolfdir, friendly and clever. Master Neloren, whose constant attempts to develop new invisibility spells were always good for a chuckle or two. Even crotchety old Urag. She loved every one of them in a different way.

And of course, there were the three who walked at her side now. Her best friends, her classmates, the people who struggled alongside her to control their wards, who stayed up late with her scribbling revision notes for their exams, who kept her entertained for hours in the Arcanaeum as they read up together on magical theory, or else gathered together in one of their rooms in the Hall of Attainment, chatting and laughing and debating together about the events of the day they'd shared, their opinions on the lessons, their complaints about Nirya's haughtiness and Ancano's constant snooping around. This life, the life she shared with them, was so vibrant, so real, that it made her existence in Black Marsh seem like a dream, a far-off, distant thing that had happened to someone else. It was as if, the moment Faralda had escorted her through those vast gates, she had been born again, or woken up from a sleep she'd never known she was in. Either that, or she'd fallen asleep, and this was a wonderful dream.

No more days of lying on her stomach by reedbeds, mud staining her shirtfront, as she waited for enough fish to swim into a net. No more fumbling with fishing line. No more disapproving eyes, no more tuts, no more feeling of being out of place. Her days now were filled with lectures that were beyond fascinating, books beyond number, plants with magical properties, potions, enchantments, scrolls, soul gems, staffs. Colour. Light. _Life._

And perhaps the best thing of all…

'Mellifluous,' she said.

'Easy.' Brelyna rubbed her hands together. 'Smooth and sweet-sounding. Derived from the Cyrodiilic, literally meaning _flowing with honey._ Your turn: amaranthine.'

'Unfading or everlasting. Alternatively, of a purple-red colour.'

'Here is a word for you. J'zargo learned it whilst he was travelling through Cyrodiil. The youths there use it often. This one thinks it describes you both perfectly: _nerd.'_

He shoved open the door to the Hall of Attainment. 'Now, this one is going to bed before his fur freezes. If he oversleeps tomorrow, be sure to wake him. He has no wish to be the last to Saarthal. He would prefer to arrive first, and kill more Draugr than the rest of you put together.'

Onmund stared after his retreating back. 'Wait. Do you think there'll be Draugr?'

Jeerala shrugged. 'In my experience, where there's a Nord tomb, there's always Draugr.'

'Well, that's… good.' Brelyna's tone made it clear she thought it was anything but. 'Well, I'll head to bed too. I'm probably going to be up half the night now, so I might as well try to get as much sleep as I can.'

'Draugr aren't all that scary!' Jeerala called after her. 'You'd be surprised, actually – they spend a disproportionate amount of time yelling random things like _Sovngarde saraan_ and _bolaag aaz, mal lir_ at you and not actually fighting.'

'I'll judge them when I see them. If I see them.' Brelyna pulled open the door to her room. 'Which I hope not to.'

She shut the door very firmly after herself. Jeerala turned to Onmund. 'Are you afraid of Draugr?'

'I don't know yet. I've never seen one. I'm afraid of what they are, though.'

Jeerala nodded, understanding instantly. 'They were actual people once, and now they're… not.' _Like Drivya. Like Ushara._

Onmund gave her a slightly nervous smile. 'Let's… let's change the subject.'

'You really don't like thinking about this expedition, do you?'

'I just…' He sighed heavily. 'Would you have a problem with it if in a few hundred years' time, people were poking around Hejal and digging up the bodies of your family?'

'Well, our bodies would have decayed into the marsh by then. Argonians don't really put as much store by the body as other races do. But I get what you mean. And honestly, I wouldn't mind. If they wanted to learn things, and looking around Hejal could teach them…'

'But what if the people buried there – or… swamp… dissolved there – had a problem with it?'

Jeerala tipped her head on one side. 'Do you think the Nords of Saarthal would have a problem with it?'

'I don't know. But you know most Nords don't like magic much.'

'I know, and the exceptions are the true Nords. Like the exception standing in front of me.'

The corner of Onmund's mouth twitched. 'You know, it made me think, what you wrote about your family. In the end, they were happy about you going, and you – you felt like everything was right with them, in the end, right?'

'Yeah. I mean, I miss them, and I was sad that I had to leave, but there was no bad blood or anything.' She edged a little closer to him. 'You're thinking about your family, aren't you?'

He let out another sigh, turning to gaze into the depths of the light beam in the centre of the room. 'It's hard not to. I mean, I told you that it was like a blessing to get away from them. But I wish I could have felt, when I left, that… that they were at peace with me coming here. I never asked for them to be happy about it, but…'

He let the sentence trail away. Jeerala moved over to him and lightly touched his arm. 'Hey. Once you're a world-famous mage, recovering artefacts of untold power and saving lives all over the place, they've got to accept it. Right?'

He didn't reply to this, so she added, 'Besides, you're happy you're here. And so am I.'

This time, his smile was a proper, broad one. 'Thanks, Jee.'

They stood in silence for a while, watching the way the light in the beam flickered and danced. And Jeerala reflected on just how wonderful these moments were, when a friend opened their heart to you, displayed just how much they trusted you. Out of her three classmates, Onmund was the one who did this most, and the one with whom she felt most comfortable doing the same. After all, he was very like her – a child of a race not commonly given to practising magic, and of a family that disapproved of his choice of path. He shared her thirst for knowledge, her inquisitive mind, her love of magic, even her cheerfulness – most of the time, at least. In many ways, he reminded her of Pebbles. Just with more interest in her own interests, and fewer scales. Yes, she was very happy that he was here.

'Something I was wondering,' Onmund said suddenly, turning his head towards her. 'Argonian names. Some of you use your Jel names, and some of you use the Cyrodiilic translations, right?'

'Yup.'

'In your story, you wrote some of the names in Jel, and some in Cyrodiilic. Why was that?'

'Mostly 'cause the names I translated would sound really weird if you'd never spoken Jel. Some of them were just really long and it was quicker to write them in Cyrodiilic.'

He nodded. 'Makes sense.' There was a short silence, then he frowned. 'What would your name be in Cyrodiilic?'

Jeerala squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, concentrating hard – this was a translation she'd have to get right. 'Spreads-Sunlight. Or Spreads-The-Sun.'

He grinned 'That's pretty. Suits you.'

'You think so? I could never work out what it was supposed to mean. You don't argue with the name you get at your Hist sap ceremony, you just use it, even if it makes no sense. There was this merchant in Fernglade whose name meant Eats-Frogs. What kind of a name is that? I guess Spreads-Sunlight is pretty good, but how do you spread sunlight anyway? Well, if you have a really big mirror…'

'You did save the world. If that's not making people's lives a little brighter, I don't know what is.'

Jeerala looked at him for a moment. And then she smiled. One of those rare, wonderful smiles that you felt all through you, not just on your face but inside your bones and your soul.

'I don't have a clue if that's what it really means,' she said, 'but I like that meaning, and I'm going to use it.'

She felt a yawn rising up within her, and pressed a hand to her snout in a vain attempt to stifle it. 'Well, I guess I'm going to head off to bed too. And I promise, the Saarthal expedition's going to great fun. Pretty much everything we do here is great fun, and some actual fieldwork? It'll be great. You'll see.'

'I hope so. Good night, Jee.'

''Night, Onmund. See you tomorrow. Don't worry about the Draugr.'

She gave him a final grin and set off across the Hall to her own room. She had a feeling she was going to sleep well tonight. It had been good, finally telling her story to the others, telling it properly. She'd long ago told the full tale to Onmund, who she liked and trusted the most, and bits and pieces to Brelyna and J'zargo, but getting everything out in the open… it felt good. It felt free.

'Hey, Jeerala?'

Jeerala turned her head. 'Uh-huh?'

Onmund looked at her for a few seconds; for so long, in fact, that she began to wonder if he'd forgotten what he was going to say. 'I was thinking…' he said at last.

'Careful, it might hurt.'

He rolled his eyes and tried again. 'I was wondering. Maybe, tomorrow, after we're back from the Saarthal expedition… maybe you'd like to go for a drink in the Frozen Heath? You know, with me.'

Jeerala gave him a long, searching look. 'As in, just you?'

'Yes. I mean, if you'd like…'

He looked away, biting his lip. And Jeerala realised, suddenly, that this was not like that awkward moment when Ushara had suggested that Pebbles had an interest in her. Nor was it like the moment she'd had to, in her uncle's words, 'let him down gently.' She hadn't felt the same way for Pebbles as he'd felt for her, she knew that, but it was only now that she really, truly understood why: she hadn't really been herself back then. How could she ever have any kind of relationship with anyone if they weren't having a relationship with the real her? And as long as she'd been in Black Marsh, that wouldn't have changed.

But now she was in Skyrim, and Onmund was not Pebbles, and she was herself.

'Yes,' she said, surprising herself with how firmly she said the word. 'Yes, I'd like that.'

He let out a breath that she guessed he'd been holding in for a while. 'That's great. Thanks.'

There was a short silence. Then he coughed, and glanced in the direction of his room. 'I should – we should get some sleep. Um. Until tomorrow, then.'

Argonians, Jeerala knew, did not have the sharpest hearing. But as Onmund hurried away, she was still able to catch the word he hissed to himself: ' _Yes!'_

Smiling, she crossed the Hall to her own room, and went inside.

She loved this room. She loved that there were books, scrolls and soul gems covering every available space. She loved that there was a lute, a replacement of the one the Imperials had broken at the border, tucked under the bed. She loved that there were two sets of blue robes, carefully made to her size and shape, hung up in the cupboard. She loved the softness of the blankets, so unlike the thin, worn things that had covered her bed in Hejal. She loved that it was her place. And she loved that it represented her new life, her happy, excited, contented life.

Once, she had been a fisherwoman with no talent for her trade. Now she was the Dragonborn and a novice mage. She was in control of her magic. She had friends, real, good, true friends. She was doing what she loved. And she was _happy._

She'd had so much anger in her when she'd fought Drivya in Xinio'al. Not just because the Dunmer had been threatening innocent people, though of course that had been most of it. And not just because of her Dragon blood, either. It was because she'd had anger pent up inside her, the frustration natural to anyone who simply didn't know who they were.

Jeerala sat down on her bed, pulling off her hood and her boots. She'd sleep in her robes – if she overslept, which was highly likely, it would save the trouble of dressing.

That anger was gone, she reflected, as she shook her boots from her feet, watching them fly into a corner. It was not merely Paarthurnax's influence that had helped her to control that dragon rage. It was finding a purpose in life, and a place to belong. When she had defeated Alduin, she had known for certain that she was important – _her,_ Jeerala, the clumsy failed fisher from a secluded, boring, muddy corner of Black Marsh.

It didn't matter how unimpressive her origins were. They were her origins, and no matter how much they'd frustrated her, they'd helped her understand who she was. Because life in Hejal had shown her very clearly who she was not.

She kicked back the covers, flopped down onto the bed, and pulled the blankets up to her chin.

She was not a woman who could live her whole life for no purpose but her own survival, and that of her family. She was not a woman who could sacrifice adventure and discovery for the sake of safety. She was not a woman who would sit back and watch while others suffered.

She was a woman who looked for meaning, in her life, and in all life - and found it. She was a woman who wanted to wake up with no knowledge of what the coming day would bring. She was a woman who would always, always, face down an insane mage cult, or a world-eating dragon, or whatever else might be out there, so that someone else, someone who didn't have the wonderful, beautiful power of magic at their fingertips to defend themselves, could live a longer life.

That was who she was, and she loved it.

How could she not, when the Hist themselves seemed to believe that she had been born to spread the sun?

* * *

END


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